UN  GARY 


■Q'¥4S    CAPEK 


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THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


J 


THE 

SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

SLAVS  AND  PANSLAVISM 


BY 

THOMAS  CAPEK 

MEMBER  OF  THE  NEW  YORK  BAR 


Zbe  Ikntcfeerbocfeer  press 

New  York 
1906 


Copyright,  1906 

BY 

THOMAS    CAPEK 


Ubc  mnlcfccibocfter  prcee,  IRcw  HJorh 


c/7i 


s^ 


TO 
P.   V.   ROVNIANEK,  Esq. 

OF  PITTSBURG,  PA. 

a  tireless  worker  for  slovak  rights 

a  recognized  leader  among  his  fellow  countrymen 

this  work  is  respectfully  dedicated 

By  the  Author 


V 


CONTENTS 


PAGB 


.       18 

The  Slovaks  :  Past  and  Present 

•       53 

Language  and  Literature 

I02 

Social  Conditions       .... 

.        I44 

Magyar  Brothers-in-Law 

169 

.       19I 

ILLUSTRATIONS 


John  Kollar       .... 
Paul  Joseph  Safari 
Michael  Miloslav  Hodza  . 
Matica  Building  (Confiscated) 
John  Holly         .         . 

v 

LUDEVIT  STUR        .... 

Dr.  Joseph  M.  Hurban 

SVETOZAR  HURBAN-VAJANSKY 


PAGE 

18 

3° 

84 

98 

128 

134 

138 
206 


vu 


I 


INTRODUCTION. 

N  the  steel  mills  alongf  the  Mononeahela 
River,  in  the  Connellsville  coke  region, 
in  the  anthracite  coal  mines  throuehout  Penn- 
sylvania,  and  for  that  matter  in  every  factory, 
mill,  and  industrial  concern  north  of  the  Mason 
and  Dixon  line,  you  will  find,  doing  generally  the 
hardest  and  meanest  labor,  but  doing  it  faith- 
fully and  cheerfully,  able-bodied  "foreigners" 
whom  their  employers  call  indifferently  "Huns," 
"Hungarians,"  or  "Slavs."  Of  these  work- 
men, skilled  and  unskilled,  the  Slovaks  from 
Hungary  form  a  considerable  percentage. 
Pennsylvania  has  the  largest  Slovak  population, 
and  the  name  of  Penn's  Commonwealth  is  by 
all  odds  the  most  familiar  English  term  in  all 
Upper  Hungary.  How  many  of  these  people, 
who  come  to  our  shores  in  ever  increasing 
numbers,  are  now  in  the  United  States  can 
only  be  guessed.  If  we  use  for  a  basis  of 
computation  the  enrolled  members  of  ben- 
evolent and  other  organizations,  of  which 
Slovaks  have  a  good  many  in  our  country,  the 

ix 


x  INTRODUCTION 

number  will  run  wellnigh  to  four  hundred 
thousand.  To  obtain  an  even  approximately 
correct  count  is  impossible,  for  the  reason  that 
our  census  does  not  classify  Slovaks  separately 
as  such,  and  because,  furthermore,  the  popu- 
lation is  constantly  fluctuating.  It  may  be 
stated  without  fear  of  contradiction,  that  prob- 
ably no  other  class  of  people  travel  to  and  fro 
as  much  as  the  Slovaks.  Steamship  companies 
find  them  very  profitable  patrons. 

Nothing  has  been  written  in  English  about 
the  Slovaks  except  brief  articles  in  the  various 
encyclopaedias,  and  even  for  these  the  reader 
was  compelled  to  look  under  the  collective 
title  "  Slavonians."  Talvj  (Mrs.  Edward 
Robinson)  has  devoted  a  few  pages  to  a  criti- 
cal discussion  of  the  Slovak  language,  but  as 
her  book  did  not  touch  on  social  and  political 
conditions,  dealing  mainly  with  Slavic  litera- 
ture and  philology,  and  that  in  a  manner  now 
necessarily  obsolete,  the  Historical  Review  of 
the  Languages  and  Literature  of  the  Slavic 
Nations  does  not  throw  much  li<rht  in  the 
darkness.  The  Millennium  of  Hungary,  a 
compendious  work  issued  in  English  by  the 
Hungarian  Government  in  1890,  is  a  publica- 
tion of  the  usual  Magyar  official  type,  and  for 
hat  reason  must  be  taken  only  for  what  it  is 


INTRODUCTION  xi 

worth.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  any  work  that  re- 
counts solely  Magyar  deeds  and  knows  of  only 
Magyar  culture  in  Hungary  tells  mathematic- 
ally, if  not  actually,  only  half  of  the  story  of 
that  country,  when  we  bear  in  mind  that  Hun- 
gary is  but  one-half  Magyar.  More  has  been 
written  about  the  Slovaks  in  German.  An  ex- 
cellent booklet  appeared  in  Prague  in  1903, 
entitled  Die  Unterdriickung der  Slovaken  durch 
die  Magyaren. 

The  author  of  the  present  work  is  intimately 
acquainted  with  the  American  Slovak,  his  am- 
bitions and  efforts,  and  in  the  fall  of  1903  he 
had  an  opportunity  to  observe  him  at  close 
range  in  his  own  home,  and  as  a  result  of  his 
observations  he  is  prepared  to  say  that  Ameri- 
can dollars  and  American  civilization  have 
done  more  to  uplift  him  than  anything  else 
that  had  been  done  for  him  by  his  own 
Government  within  the  last  half  century.  Ex- 
aggerated as  the  statement  may  seem  at  first, 
it  is  yet  quite  true.  Just  now  the  Slovak 
highlander  is  far  more  concerned  over  the 
scale  of  wages  obtaining  in  and  about  Pitts- 
burg than  he  is  over  the  wages  paid  in  Pest. 
If  the  whole  truth  must  be  told,  Hungary, 
ever  since  Kossuth's  time  and  lono-  before  that, 
has  been  nothing  but  a  foster-mother  to  the 


xii  INTRODUCTION 

Slovaks  and  a  cruel  foster-mother  at  that. 
When  Louis  Kossuth  came  to  the  United 
States  after  the  suppression  of  the  Magyar 
rebellion,  his  powerful  eloquence,  and  the  cap- 
tivating cause  of  which  he  made  himself  the 
champion,  won  him  the  sympathy  of  every 
lover  of  freedom  in  the  country.  Terrible, 
though  not  undeserved,  was  Kossuth's  arraign- 
ment of  Austria  for  her  shocking  excesses  in 
Hungary.  But  the  Nestor  of  Hungarian 
liberty  had  nothing  to  say  to  Americans  about 
the  gibbets  that  he  and  his  party  caused  to  be 
erected  for  the  prompt  execution  of  Slovak 
and  Servian  rebels  who  demanded  for  them- 
selves exactly  what  the  Magyars  believed  to 
be  their  due  from  Austria.  During  his  travels 
in  Hungary,  the  present  author  interviewed 
Francis  Kossuth,  son  of  Louis  Kossuth,  and 
now  the  leader  of  the  Independents,  and  asked 
him  whether  the  charge  was  true  that  the 
Slovaks  were  being  persecuted  ?  Mr.  Kossuth 
affected  to  be  very  much  surprised.  Perse- 
cuted? Impossible  !  The  very  fact  that  they 
had  survived  the  Magyar  occupation  of  a 
thousand  years  disproved  effectually  any  tale 
of  persecution.  Like  Kossuth  reasons  the 
average  Magyar.  Truth  travels  slowly  but 
surely,  and  observing  travellers  from  France 


INTRODUCTION  xiii 

and  Germany  have  had  occasion  to  correct 
some  of  the  views  which  our  fathers  and 
grandfathers  still  hold  concerning  affairs  in 
the  Kingdom  of  St.  Stephen.  Ludevit  Stiir 
better  than  anyone  knew  and  felt  how  shame- 
fully ill-treated  his  people  were,  and  he  used 
to  say  that  their  lot  in  Hungary  was  worse 
than  the  position  of  the  Christian  raia  in 
Turkey.  It  may  not  be  quite  as  bad  as  all 
that,  and  things  may  have  improved  consider- 
ably since  the  time  of  Stur,  who  was  a  contem- 
porary of  Kossuth,  but  nevertheless  the  fact 
is  indisputable  that  no  people  in  Central 
Europe  are  abused  more  impudently  by  a 
wicked  and  hostile  Government  than  the 
Slovaks.  And  why  ?  Because  all  of  them 
will  not  sell  their  birthright  for  a  mess  of 
Magyar  pottage.  If  we  recognize  in  principle 
the  right  of  the  Finns,  or  Jews,  or  Irish,  or  of 
any  other  people  or  sect  to  a  separate  exist- 
ence, is  there  any  good  or  valid  reason  for 
denying  that  right  to  Slovaks  ?  The  Irish 
make  the  welkin  ring  with  their  grievances  at 
times ;  the  Finns  can  count  on  powerful  sym- 
pathizers in  their  uneven  struggle  with  Russia  ; 
the  Jews  have  formidable  interests  backing 
them  everywhere ;  in  the  same  way  the  Mace- 
donians are  not  wholly  without  friends — but 


xiv  INTRODUCTION 

whither  shall  the  downtrodden  Slovak  high- 
lander  turn  for  support?  In  his  case  the 
Lord  is  too  high  and  the  sovereign  too  far  to 
save. 

Is  it  denied  that  they  are  ill-treated  ?  The 
Slovaks  constitute  one  sixth  of  the  total  popu- 
lation of  the  country,  yet  how  many  of  them 
serve  the  state  in  higher  spheres  of  life,  as 
soldiers,  churchmen,  or  statesmen  ?  Not  a 
single  name  could  be  mentioned.  What 
Slovak  journalist  has  not  been  tried  or  sen- 
tenced to  a  term  in  prison  for  political  libel  ? 
What  Slovak  deputy  was  not  forced  to  defend 
a  suit  for  incitement  against  Magyar  nation- 
ality ?  What  patriotic  priest  has  not  been  under 
police  surveillance  at  one  time  or  another  ? 
As  often  as  the  accusing  finger  is  pointed  at 
Pest,  the  answer  comes  :  Panslavs  alone  are 
persecuted,  not  Slovaks  !  But  is  a  panslav 
a  fore-doomed  culprit  who  has  no  rights  that 
Hungarian  officials,  from  the  gendarme  up  to 
the  Minister  of  State,  are  bound  to  respect? 
Overwhelming  must  be  the  sense  of  injustice 
when  a  national  poet,  a  minister  of  the  gospel, 
relieves  the  bitterness  of  his  soul  in  such  a 
heart-stirring  song  as  "  Mor  ho!"  —  "Kill!" 
"  Experience  has  shown,"  sadly  comments  Paul 
Krizko,  "that  at  the  present  time  there  is  no 


INTRODUCTION  xv 

legal  protection  for  the  Slovaks  in  their  ancient 
home." 

The  present  author  has  drawn  his  material 
almost  exclusively  from  Bohemian  and  Slovak 
sources,  consulting,  however,  Magyar  publica- 
tions in  so  far  as  the  same  are  translated  into 
English.  Below  is  a  list  of  some  of  the  writers 
and  publications  examined  : 

Charles  Kalal,  Meakulpinsky,  Stephen  Dax- 
ner,  Jaroslav  Vlcek,  Zdenek  V.  Tobolka, 
Anton  Bielek,  Dr.  Emil  Stodola,  Joseph 
Skultety,  Joseph  L.  Holuby,  Paul  Joseph 
Safafik,  Miloslav  Bohutiensky,  {Life  of  Kolldr), 
Pohlady  (  Slovak  Review),  Dr.  Samo  Czam- 
bel,  Sbornik  Musedlnej  Slovenskej  Spolocnosti 
{Magazine  of  the  Slovak  Museum  Society), 
Dr.  Julius Markovic,  LudevitStiir,  Paul  Sochan, 
Milan  Lichard,  Francis  Pastrnek,  Rudolph 
Pokorny,  Joseph  J.  Touzimsky,  Ziga  Pauliny- 
Toth,  Paul  Krizko,  Andrew  Kmet,  Francis 
Sasinek,  Lubor  Niederle,  Arminius  Vambery, 
Coxe,  William  H.  Stiles,  Julius  Botto,  Dr. 
Joseph  Dejekelfalussy,  W.  R.  Morfill,  Talvj, 
E.  L.  Mijatovics,  Valerian  Krasinski,  T.  G. 
Masaryk,  Rev.  Cyrus  Hamlin,  L.  Heilprin, 
Louis  Leger,  Arthur  Gorgei,  Professor  Krek, 
Francis  Palacky,  John  Kollar,  Hurbans — father 
and  son,  etc. 


xvi  INTRODUCTION 

That  the  subject-matter  might  be  clear 
chapters  on  Slavs  and  Panslavism  were  in- 
cluded in  this  book. 

In  Moravia,  close  to  the  Hungarian  frontier, 
are  entire  villages  of  Slovaks,  but  no  mention 
is  made  of  these  although  Moravian  and  Hun- 
garian Slovaks  are  one  and  the  same  race. 

Diacritical  marks  are  used  wherever  expedi- 
ent, except  in  the  oft  recurrent  word  "  Slovak," 
which  requires  a  mark  on  the  vowel  a,  viz  :  a. 
Due  regard  is  had  to  Slovak  terminology, 
because  its  continued  use  is  justified  by  cen- 
turies of  approbation  as  against  decades  of 
Magyar  official  wantonness. 

The  ethnical  map  of  the  Slavic  races  follows 
the  standard  map  of  Erben  and  the  ethnical 
Russian  map  of  1867. 

Proper  names  of  persons  are  written  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  accepted  orthography  of 
each  race.  Thus  Safarik  is  given  preference 
to  Schaffarik,  Jellacic  to  Jellachich,  etc. 

The  Author. 
New  York  City, 
December  6,  1905. 


THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 


THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 


I 


THE  SLAVS 

T  is  estimated  that  there  are  between  125,- 
000,000  and  145,000,000  Slavonians.1  In 
the  east  live  the  Russians,  the  mightiest  branch 
of  the  Slavic  family,  numbering  some  86,000,- 
000.  They  are  divided  according  to  dialect 
into  Great  Russians,  Little  Russians,  and 
White  Russians. 

In  the  south  are  the  South-Slavs  or  Illyri- 
ans,  known  as  Servians,  Croatians,  Bosnians, 

1  Under  existing  conditions  it  is  impossible  to  state  the  accurate 
number  of  Slavs.  In  some  countries,  as  for  instance  in  Austro- 
Hungary,  it  is  a  practice  to  count  according  to  the  "language  of 
intercourse,"  and  not  according  to  the  mother  tongue,  by  virtue  of 
which  stratagem  Slavs  lose  enormously.  Basing  his  figures  on 
official  census  and  minimal  estimates,  Professor  Lubor  Niederle 
reckoned  that  the  Slavs  in  1900  numbered  138,987,800.  At  the  end 
of  1904  this  should  have  been  increased  by  8,000,000,  giving  a  grand 
total  of  145,000,000  or  147,000,000.  German  statisticians  reckon 
fewer  Slavs.  Thus,  for  instance,  A.  L.  Hickmann,  in  1904,  found 
132,000,000  of  them. 

1 


2  THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

Montenegrins  (Crnogorci),  Slavonians,  Dalma- 
tians, and  Slovenes  respectively.  To  these 
may  be  added  the  Bulgarians.  All  told,  the 
South  Slavonians  number  about  13,000,000. 

In  the  west  are  found  the  Bohemians  who, 
together  with  their  nearest  kinsmen,  the  Mora- 
vians and  Slovaks,  are  8,500,000  strong;  the 
Poles,  computed  at  1 7,000,000 ;  and  1 50,000 
Serbs,  living  in  the  two  Lusatias,  all  that 
is  left  of  the  once  powerful  branch  of  that 
name. 

Slavs  owe  allegiance  to  four  great  govern- 
ments, Russia,  Austro-Hungary,  Germany,  and 
Turkey. 

The  creeds  of  the  Slavic  nations  are  as 
varied  as  the  governments  under  which  they 
live.  They  belong  to  the  Orthodox  Church 
(Russians,  Bulgarians,  and  Servians),  to  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church  (Poles,  Bohemians, 
Slovaks,  Croatians,  Slovenes),  about  3,000,000 
are  Uniates,  or  United  Orthodox,  1,500,000 
Protestants  (Lusatians,  Serbs,  Bohemians, 
Poles,  Slovenes,  and  Slovaks),  and  1,000,000 
Mohammedans  (Bosnians,  Hercegovinans). 

The  Slavonians  are  members  of  the  great 
Aryan  family  of  nations.  Originally  they 
called  themselves  "  Srbove,"  which  signified 
"people  of  the  same  race."     To  Germans  and 


THE  SLAVS  3 

others  with  whom  they  came  into  contact, 
they  were  known  as  Vends  or  Vinds.  In  the 
sixth  century,  the  use  of  the  name  Vinds  be- 
came restricted  to  particular  branches  of  the 
race  and  a  new  name,  Slavonians,  until  then 
the  ancient  designation  of  a  tribe  settled  around 
Novgorod,  in  Russia,  gained  universal  recogni- 
tion. About  the  meaning  of  the  word  "  Slav," 
"  Slavonian  "  writers  differ.  Some  derive  it 
from  "  slava,"  glory,  which  interpretation,  no 
doubt,  is  more  fanciful  than  true.  Others, 
like  Dobrovsky,  trace  it  to  "slovo,"  word, 
thus  meaning  speech,  as  distinguished  from 
"mutes,"  or  "Nemci,"as  the  Slavonians  called 
the  Germans.  "  By  chance  or  malice  German 
and  Latin  writers  degraded  this  national  appel- 
lation of  Slavs  to  the  signification  of  servitude, 
slavery." 

At  what  period  the  Slavic  peoples  migrated 
with  other  nations  to  Europe,  by  what  route 
they  proceeded,  when  they  separated  from  the 
parent  stock,  what  common  tongue  they  spoke, 
are  problems  which,  unsolved  and  seemingly 
unsolvable,  continue  to  occupy  the  minds  of 
scholars.  At  one  time  the  so-called  Old  or 
Church  Slavic,  into  which  the  missionary  Cyril 
translated  the  Bible,  or  parts  of  it,  was  regarded 
as  the  mother  of  all  the  Slavic  idioms,  but  re- 


4  THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

cent  investieations  have  demonstrated  that  the 
Old  Slavic  is  only  an  elder  sister,  and  that  the 
mother  tongue  must  have  passed  out  of  ex- 
istence ages  ago.  White  or  Great  Croatia,  a 
country  of  indefinite  extent,  traversed  by  the 
Carpathian  Mountains, and  situated  between  the 
Vistula  and  the  Dnieper,  is  spoken  of  by  all 
the  chroniclers  as  the  fatherland  of  the  primi- 
tive Slavs.  There  they  lived,  it  is  supposed, 
in  common  brotherhood,  speaking,  substan- 
tially, the  same  language,  governed  by  the  same 
traditions,  and  practising  the  same  pagan  rites. 
From  this  White  Croatia,  they  afterwards 
spread  north,  west,  and  south,  either  in  search 
of  new  possessions,  or  because  they  were 
thrust  out  by  other  nations. 

In  the  seventh  century  their  migrations  ap- 
pear to  have  ceased  ;  and  we  find  them  a  cen- 
tury later  occupying  in  uninterrupted  continuity 
a  vast  tract  east  of  the  Elbe,  the  Saale,  and 
the  Bohemian  Forest,  southward  to  the  Adri- 
atic Sea,  in  the  regions  where,  upon  the  whole, 
they  are  still  to  be  found  to  day.  The  names 
of  rivers,  cities,  and  villages  with  Slavic  roots 
or  terminations  prove  irrefutably  that  in  ancient 
times  Slavonic  was  spoken  in  Saxony,  Brand- 
enburg, Mecklenburg,  Pomerania,  and  other 
provinces  now  German.     Some  of  the  finest 


THE  SLAVS  5 

passages  in  the  prologue  to  KollaYs  poem, 
Slavids  Daughter?  dwell  on  the  sad  fate  of 
the  nations  that  lived  along  the  Elbe  and  the 
Baltic  and  were  in  time  absorbed  by  the 
Germans. 

Ay,  here  lies  that  country  before  my  tearful  eye, 
Once  the  cradle,  now  the  coffin,  of  my  nation. 

•  ••••••• 

Whither  have  you  disappeared,  beloved  Slavic  nations, 

who  here  have  lived, 
Nations  that  drank  of  the  sea  here  and  of  the  Saale 

there  ? 
The  peaceful  tribes  of  the  Serbians,  of  the  Obodritian 

empire  the  descendants, 
Where  are  you,  tribes  of  the  Veleti,  where,  grandsons  of 

theUkri? 
Far  to  the  right  I  gaze,  to  the  left  I  turn  my  searching 

vision, 
But  in  vain  does  my  eye  seek  Slavs  in  Slavia. 
Speak,  tree,  their  grown  temple,  under  which  offerings  to 

ancient  gods  were  burned; 
Where  are  those  nations,  their  princes,  cities, 
That  first  gave  life  to  these  regions  of  the  north  ? 

Of  the  Slavs  in  the  days  of  paganism  and 
idolatry  our  accounts  are  meagre.  Native 
writers  who  possessed  intimate  knowledge  of 
the  country  and  its  people  did  not  appear 
among  them  until  long  after  the  introduction 

1  Adapted  from  Leger's  Histoire  de  V Autriche-Hongrie,  translated 
by  Freeman. 


6  THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

of  the  gospel.  As  all  our  knowledge  of  the 
manners,  instincts,  and  sentiments  of  the 
robust  Slavonian  peasant  of  pre  -  Christian 
times  is  derived  from  foreigners,  and,  as  the 
observations  of  contemporary  writers  rest 
mainly  on  hearsay,  from  tales  that  had  been 
gathered  in  Slavic  lands  by  Roman  and  Greek 
merchants,  whom  cupidity  had  tempted  thither, 
it  will  be  seen  how  untrustworthy  such  accounts 
must  be. 

In  some  respects,  however,  all  writers  agree 
— as,  that  the  Slavs  were  eminently  agricultur- 
ists. The  Germans  acknowledged  that  the 
Slavonians  taught  them  both  agriculture  and 
horticulture.  The  name  of  plough,  German 
"  Pflug,"  is  of  pure  Slavic  origin.  Therein 
they  differed  from  the  primitive  Germans, 
their  neighbors  in  the  west,  who  were  seldom 
tillers  of  the  soil,  but  were  more  generally 
roving  and  predatory. 

Before  the  introduction  of  feudalism  among 
them,  the  Slavs  were  as  free  as  any  barbarians 
in  Europe.  To  show  that  this  was  so,  it  is 
only  necessary  to  cite  an  ancient  law  of  theirs, 
which  provided  that  captives  of  Slavonian 
nationality,  by  whomsoever  held,  should  be 
free  the  instant  they  set  foot  on  Slavonian  soil. 
Castes  and  hereditary  power  were  unknown. 


THE  SLAVS  7 

All  the  traditions  of  the  Bohemians,  Poles,  and 
Russians  point  to  this  conclusion.  Everywhere 
the  chiefs  were  elected  from  and  by  the  people 
without  distinction  of  rank  or  birth.  Samo, 
surnamed  the  Great,  who  in  the  seventh 
century  founded  the  first  Slavonic  empire  in 
the  west,  was  a  jeweller  before  he  became  a 
ruler ;  according  to  tradition,  Pfemysl  was 
called  from  the  plough  to  rule  the  Bohemian 
nation  ;  and  in  Poland  a  wheelwright  estab- 
lished a  long  line  of  kings.  An  historian  who 
wrote  in  the  sixth  century  says  of  them  that 
they  lived  in  a  "  democracy,"  recognizing  no 
ruler.  Such  was  admittedly  the  case  with  the 
Baltic  Slavs,  among  whom  each  clan  or  village 
existed  as  a  separate  republic,  and  "  all  must 
be  persuaded  where  none  could  be  compelled." 
A  father  stood  at  the  head  of  every  family 
or  clan.  Upon  his  death  a  vladyka  {ylddnouti, 
to  rule)  was  selected,  by  free  choice,  to  repre- 
sent the  interests  of  the  clan  in  the  assembly. 
By  virtue  of  their  dignity  all  vladykas  were 
zemans,  or  freeholders.  Land  being  aliena- 
ble, it  inevitably  followed  that  some  families 
acquired  greater  territorial  possessions  than 
others.  In  time  the  wealthier  class  of  ze7?zans, 
to  whom  land  had  come  through  inheritance, 
received  the  name  lechs,  a  Slavonic  term  sig- 


8  THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

nifying  "  field."  The  nobility  of  feudal  times, 
the  slechtici,  as  they  are  called  in  Bohemian, 
are  indebted  for  their  name  and  possessions  to 
the  leeks.  To  advise  him  on  legislative  and 
judicial  matters,  the  chief  magistrate  (in  Bo- 
hemia) chose  a  senate  of  wise  men,  known  as 
kmets,  meaning  "  old  men." 

Usually  land  was  held  and  cultivated  in 
common  by  each  clan,  out  of  which  grew  a 
custom,  familiar  to  the  Scottish  Highlanders, 
requiring  some  responsible  person  to  be  secur- 
ity at  court  for  the  good  conduct  of  the  mem- 
bers of  the  clan.  That  they  possessed  a  code 
of  laws,  differing  in  many  respects  from  the 
laws  sought  to  be  introduced  among  them  by 
the  Germans,  is  well  known. 

The  men  tilled  the  soil ;  the  women  per- 
formed domestic  work.  Families  bore  the 
name  of  their  chieftain  ;  therefore,  if  the  chief's 
name  was  Mladen,  Bratron,  Radon,  the  mem- 
bers of  that  family  were  Mladenovici  Bratronici, 
Radonici,  the  patronymic,  as  will  be  observed, 
always  ending  in  ici.  In  the  same  manner 
villages  became  known  by  the  name  of  the 
clan,  inhabiting  them — Bratronice,  Radonice, 
Mladenice.  A  union  of  families  constituted 
a  tribe.  Bohemia,  for  instance,  was  inhabited 
by  a  number  of  tribes,  all  of  Slavonic  ances- 


THE  SLAVS  9 

try,  but  of  unequal  strength  and  influence,  and 
differing  slightly  in  speech  and  manners.  The 
Cechs,  now  the  dominant  race,  were  only  one 
of  a  number  of  tribes  that  peopled  Bohemia. 
Tradition  names  Lucans,  Decans,  Liutomiri- 
nas,  Psovans,  Lemusians,  Croatians,  Netoli- 
cans,  Dudlebs,  Zlicans,  and  Sedlicans  as  the 
other  tribes.  Some  of  these  clans  became  re- 
nowned for  their  wealth  and  influence.  It  is 
asserted  that  the  Vrsovici,  celebrated  in  early 
Bohemian  history,  numbered  3000  heads  at 
the  time  when  they  were  ordered  to  be  put  to 
the  sword. 

Ever  since  the  dawn  of  history  we  read  of 
"  Slavic  discord."  The  Emperor  Mauritius 
(539-602  a.d.)  already  comments  on  it.  A 
disposition  to  quarrel  among  themselves  ap- 
pears to  be  the  common  heritage  of  the  race. 
Discord  contributed  to,  if  it  did  not  entirely 
cause,  the  early  downfall  of  some  of  the  Sla- 
vonian nations  that  had  lived  in  the  north  and 
in  the  west.  From  immemorial  times  a  feeling 
of  hostility  seems  to  have  existed  between 
two  powerful  tribes,  the  Obodritians  and  the 
Lutians.  Again  and  again  they  plunged  into 
fratricidal  wars.  Tradition  is  silent  as  to  the 
reason,  but  presumably  it  was  tribal  jealousy. 
A  deep  -  rooted  dislike  kept  the  Serbs  apart 


io    THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

from  the  Lutians,  while  both  these  nations  re- 
peatedly fought  the  Cechs,  who,  we  may  im- 
agine, retaliated  in  kind.  That  the  Polabian 
tribes  did  not  live  on  any  better  terms  with 
their  more  eastern  kinsmen,  the  Croatians, 
Polans,  Milcans,  Pomeranians,  and  others,  is 
quite  certain.  Divided  by  petty,  intermin- 
able quarrels,  was  it  any  wonder  that,  notwith- 
standing their  recognized  bravery  in  war, 
they  sustained  innumerable  defeats,  becom- 
ing vassals  to  races  less  numerous  than  them- 
selves, like  the  Celts,  Scythians,  Sarmatians, 
and  Goths  ? 

Although  Christianity  had  been  previously 
introduced  mainly  by  the  arms  of  the  Franks, 
the  new  faith  was  not  fully  established  among 
them  till  the  ninth  and  tenth  centuries.  Some 
tribes,  however,  continued  to  worship  their 
ancient  gods  in  the  sacred  groves  long  after 
that  time.  To  two  brothers,  the  missionaries 
Cyril  and  Methodius,  natives  of  Thessalonica, 
a  city  of  mixed  Greek  and  Slavonian  inhabi- 
tants, belong  both  the  glory  and  credit  of  hav- 
ing given  to  the  Slavs  the  light  of  the  gospel. 
To  the  missionary  Cyril  the  Slavonians  are, 
moreover,  indebted  for  a  knowledge  of  letters, 
an  acquirement  that  distinguishes  a  civilized 
people  from  a  herd  of  savages  incapable  of  re- 


THE  SLAVS  ii 

flection.  It  may  be,  as  some  writers  claim, 
that  letters  were  known  to  the  Slavonians  long 
before  Cyril's  time  (827-869)  ;  indeed,  there  are 
evidences  that  the  pagan  priests  on  the  Baltic 
employed  written  characters  in  their  rituals. 
Yet,  as  that  circumstance  appears  to  have  been 
barren  of  result,  Cyril  must  still  be  regarded 
as  the  teacher  who  taught  the  Slavonians  the 
art  of  written  speech.  Incidentally,  it  may  be 
remarked  that  the  legends  clustering  around 
the  persons  of  the  "  Apostles  of  the  Slavoni- 
ans," a  title  conferred  upon  them  by  affection- 
ate posterity,  constitute  the  opening  chapter  to 
Slavic  history.  Everything  that  took  place  be- 
fore their  time  appears  blurred  and  indistinct 
to  us,  if  not  hopelessly  lost  in  a  maze  of  tradi- 
tion and  fable. 

It  would  be  beyond  both  the  scope  and  the 
purpose  of  this  chapter  to  describe,  even  in  a 
general  way,  the  progressive,  intellectual,  so- 
cial, and  political  development  of  the  Slavonian 
peoples  from  the  time  of  Cyril  and  Methodius, 
which  is  coeval  with  Christianity  among  them, 
to  the  present  day.  Let  us  rather  examine 
some  of  the  causes  that  have  retarded  and 
checked  that  development. 

The  adoption  of  two  irreconcilable  creeds, 
the  Roman   Catholic  and  the  Orthodox ;  the 


12  THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

adoption  of  two  rival  civilizations,  the  Eastern 
and  the  Western,  with  their  separate  literatures 
and  alphabets — is  the  first  and,  by  many  it  is  be- 
lieved, the  principal  cause.  The  missionary 
Cyril  invented,  as  we  have  noted,  an  alphabet, 
consisting  of  forty-one  letters,  and  known  after 
him  as  the  Cyrillic.  Then  he  translated,  or 
caused  to  be  translated,  part  of  the  gospels  and 
the  liturgy  into  an  idiom  spoken  at  that  time 
by  the  Macedonian  Slavonians.  If  it  had  been 
possible  to  have  adopted  Cyril's  language  and 
alphabet,  the  Slavs  would  have  achieved  in 
time  the  same,  or  similar,  literary  unity  as  the 
Germans  or  Italians.  But  hardly  had  Cyril's 
invention  begun  to  take  root  when  a  quarrel  of 
thrones  and  churches  broke  out  at  Rome  and 
Constantinople.  The  Slavic  lands  lay  in  the 
direct  zone  of  the  conflict.  Whichever  side 
won,  the  Eastern  or  the  Western,  they  were 
bound  to  be  affected.  Reconciliation  becom- 
ing impossible,  the  churches  separated,  and 
with  them  the  Slavs  :  the  Russians,  Bulgari- 
ans, Servians,  and  a  portion  of  the  South-Sla- 
vonians being  drawn  into  the  fold  of  the 
Orthodox  Church ;  the  Bohemians,  Poles, 
Slovaks,  and  Slovenes  becoming  subject  to  the 
Church  of  Rome  and  to  Latin  influence.  This 
was   the   beginning   of   an   estrangement  that 


THE  SLAVS  13 

centuries  of  religious  and  literary  prejudices 
have  made  complete. 

Another  ereat  misfortune  of  the  Slavs  was 
their  apparent  inability  or  unwillingness  to 
abandon  their  primitive  life,  which  afforded 
more  freedom  than  security,  and  to  unite  in 
great  commonwealths.  The  historian  Gibbon 
expressed  the  opinion  that  the  Slavs  were  too 
narrow  in  experience  and  of  too  headstrong 
passions  to  compose  a  system  of  equal  law  or 
general  defence.  Be  that  as  it  may,  the  fact  is 
that,  with  the  exception  of  the  Poles  and  Bo- 
hemians, none  of  the  western  tribes  succeeded 
in  establishing  an  enduring  state.  Samo's  em- 
pire (627-662?),  which  included  a  number  of 
nations,  went  to  pieces  with  the  death  of  its 
founder.  The  great  Moravian  kingdom  of 
Svatopluk  (870-894),  mention  of  which  will  be 
made  hereafter,  survived  its  ruler  only  a  short 
time.  During  the  second  half  of  the  tenth  and 
eleventh  centuries,  the  Bohemian  princes  Bole- 
slav  and  Bfetislav,  imitating  the  example  of 
Samo,  again  and  again  united  numerous  tribes 
under  one  sceptre.  The  monarchies  of  these 
princes,  however,  were  no  more  permanent 
than  those  of  Samo  or  Svatopluk.  Even  the 
mighty  realm  of  Boleslav  the  Brave  (967-1025) 
colapsed    for   lack   of   cohesive    unity.      That 


i4  THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

ambitious  Polish  prince  aspired  to  rule  over 
the  Bohemians,  Poles,  Moravians,  Slovaks,  and 
Polabian  Slavs.  Prague  was  to  have  been  the 
capital  of  Boleslav's  empire  and  "  King  of  the 
Slavonians  "  his  title.  Of  all  the  Slavic  races, 
the  Russians  alone  were  able,  in  face  of  every 
obstacle,  to  create  and  to  maintain  a  vast 
and  durable  empire.  The  village  republics  of 
the  Obodritians,  the  Lutians,  the  Serbs,  the 
Rotars,  and  others,  succumbed,  one  after  an- 
other, to  German  domination. 

Many  as  were  the  disasters  that  the  Slavs 
often  drew  down  upon  themselves,  none  was 
followed  by  consequences  more  lamentable 
than  the  invasion  and  occupation  of  Hungary 
by  the  Magyars.  Slavonic  territory  extended 
in  the  ninth  century  from  Holstein  on  the 
north  to  the  Peloponnesus.  Almost  in  the  centre 
of  this  territory,  Svatopluk,  with  consummate 
skill,  erected  and  maintained  a  powerful  empire 
in  face  of  numerous  enemies.  It  was  here 
that  Cyril  and  Methodius  first  preached  the 
gospel.  Assured  of  the  support  of  both  Rome 
and  Constantinople,  Svatopluk's  realm  seemed 
to  be  destined  for  great  things.  In  time,  it  is 
more  than  likely,  all  the  western  Slavs  would 
have  joined  it  for  reasons  of  expediency  and 
self-protection,  or  would  have  been  absorbed 


THE  SLAVS  15 

by  it.  From  it  they  would  all  have  received 
Christianity,  together  with  an  entire  fabric  of 
laws  and  institutions  and,  above  all,  a  common 
language  and  literature.  In  short,  Svatopluk's 
monarchy,  like  Russia  in  the  east,  would  have 
become  in  time  a  bulwark  of  strength  to  the 
Slavs  in  the  west.  But  the  Magyars,  a  nation 
totally  dissimilar  in  language  and  origin,  hav- 
ing thrust  themselves  into  this  body  politic, 
not  yet  coalesced  in  all  its  parts,  forever  shat- 
tered all  these  hopes.  Disrupted  anew  and 
separated  from  each  other  by  an  alien  race,  the 
various  tribes  relapsed  into  their  former  state 
of  independence,  political  and  literary.  That 
the  Magyars,  situated,  as  they  were,  in  the 
midst  of  Slavic  people,  have  not  been  absorbed 
by  them  is,  indeed,  remarkable. 

The  formation  of  the  Slavs  into  several 
nations  distinct  from  each  other  is  an  accom- 
plished fact  that  cannot  be  undone.  They  are 
related  to  each  other  in  about  the  same  degree 
of  kindred  that  unites  people  of  the  Latin  or  the 
German  races.  There  is  this  difference,  how- 
ever, that,  while  the  Germans  developed  uni- 
formly, never  having  been  checked  or  arrested 
in  their  growth  by  alien  races  hostile  to  civili- 
zation,— we  allude  to  the  Tatars  who  for  cen- 
turies dominated  Russia,  and  to  the  Turks,  the 


16         THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

evil  masters  of  the  Servians  and  Bulgarians, — 
the  evolution  of  the  Slavs  was  for  these  reasons 
slow  and  unequal.  Even  geographical  condi- 
tions were  against  them,  as  any  one  can  readily 
see  by  glancing  at  the  map  of  Europe.  It 
should  also  be  borne  in  mind  that,  while  the 
Latin  and  German  peoples  are  free  and  inde- 
pendent, obeying  no  will  but  their  own,  a  great 
many  Slavic  nations  are  controlled  by  sover- 
eign wills,  not  their  own. 

The  Bohemians  or  Cechs  are  now  contend- 
ing with  the  Germans  for  equal  rights,  lingual 
and  political,  in  the  ancient  Kingdom  of 
Bohemia. 

The  Slovenes  aspire  to  the  consolidation  of 
southern  Styria,  Carinthia,  Carniola,  and 
Trieste,  in  all  of  which  provinces  their  lan- 
guage is  spoken.  Neighbors  of  two  hostile 
races,  the  Germans  and  Italians,  their  posi- 
tion is  particularly  trying: 

The  Hungarian  Slavs  are  oppressed  more  or 
less  by  the  Magyars.  Croatia  and  Slavonia, 
together  forming  a  political  unit  with  territorial 
autonomy  inside  the  dominion  of  Hungary, 
enjoy  privileges  in  regard  to  the  use  of  their 
mother  tongue  that  are  denied  to  the  Servians, 
Rusenes,  and  Slovaks. 

The  position  of  the  Poles  is  obviously  peril- 


THE  SLAVS  17 

cms.  Of  all  the  Slavs,  they  are  losing  most 
ground,  and  this  is  especially  true  of  the  Poles 
who  were  incorporated  in  Germany.  Will 
these  eventually  meet  the  fate  of  the  Obodri- 
tians  and  of  the  Lusatians  ? 

The  hour  of  deliverance  from  Turkish  yoke 
has  not  yet  come  to  all  the  Balkan  Slavs. 
The  Crnogorci  (Montenegrins)  and  Servians 
are  entirely  free  and  independent  ;  the  Bul- 
garians are  nominally  free. 

What  remains  of  the  once  powerful  nation 
of  the  Serbs,  now  confined  to  the  two  Lusa- 
tias,  Upper  and  Lower,  is  doomed  to  perish 
sooner  or  later  in  the  German  sea  that  en- 
circles it  on  all  sides. 


PANSLAVISM 

IN  the  St.  Marx  Cemetery  in  Vienna  stands 
a  simple  marble  shaft  with  this  inscrip- 
tion :  "  Living,  he  bore  the  whole  nation 
in  his  heart;  dead,  he  lives  in  the  heart 
of  the  whole  nation." 

This  monument  marks  the  resting-place  of 
John  Kollar  (1793-1852),  the  "  High  Priest  of 
Panslavism."  By  birth  a  Slovak,  by  affiliation 
a  Bohemian,  but  by  preference  a  "Slavonian 
patriot,"  Kollar  devoted  his  whole  life,  or  as 
much  of  it  as  his  obligations  to  the  Church 
allowed  him,  for  he  was  a  Lutheran  minister, 
to  the  preaching  of  unity  among  Slavs. 
"  What  art  thou  ?  A  Russian  ?  What  art 
thou  ?  A  Servian  ?  What  art  thou  ?  I  am  a 
Pole  !  My  children,  unity  !  Let  your  answer 
be,  I  am  a  Slavonian." 

This  Slavic  unity,  in  literature  at  least,  or 
"  literary  reciprocity, '  as  he  styled  it,  was  the 
keynote,  the  ambition  of  his  life.  Why  could 
not  the  Slavonians  adopt  a  common  medium 
of  communication  as  the  Germans  have  done  ? 
To  Kollar's  mind  the  analogy  between  the  two 

18 


fa  Jt^aasi^ 


PANSLAVISM  19 

great  races,  the  German  and  the  Slavonian,  was 
complete, — and  in  this  respect  Kollar  showed 
a  judgment  lamentably  deficient.  As  a  result 
of  this  cardinal  error,  the  phantom  confederacy 
which  he  had  reared  in  his  lyric-epic  poem, 
Slavias  Daughter,  and  in  his  Literary  Reci- 
procity failed  to  stand  a  practical  test  when 
the  opportune  time  came. 

But  in  one  regard  the  "  High  Priest  of  Pan- 
slavism  "  was  eminently  successful,  and  for  this, 
if  for  nothing  else,  his  name  deserves  to  be 
remembered  by  posterity.  He  it  was  who  first 
soueht  to  inculcate  in  the  Slavs  the  sentiment 
of  "  Slavonic  patriotism."  Moreover,  by  his 
prophecies,  Kollar  filled  the  Slavs  with  hope 
and  confidence.  If  Isaiah  was  the  oracle  of 
the  Hebrews,  Kollar  may  be  said  to  have  been 
the  seer  of  the  Slavonians.  To  be  sure,  all 
his  prophecies  have  not  come  true,  but  then 
the  race,  as  a  scholar  of  distinction  expressed 
it,  "  has  neither  reached  the  flourishing  con- 
dition of  the  Germans,  nor  is  it  decaying,  but 
is  the  race  of  the  future." 

In  that  part  of  Kollar' s  Slavias  Daugh- 
ter which  was  published  in  1824,  we  find 
these  prophetic  lines  : 

"  What  will  become    of    us    Slavs  a    century 
hence  ? 


20         THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

What  aspect  will  Europe  wear  then  ? 
Flood-like,  Slavic  life  will  inundate  all, 
Expanding  its  influence  everywhere. 
And  the  tongue  which  was  proclaimed  to  be 

the  speech  fit  for  slaves,  according  to  the 

distorted  judgment  of  the  Germans, 
Will    resound    within    the    walls    of    palaces, 

issuing  even  out  of  the  mouths  of  its  very 

rivals. 
Sciences,  too,  will  flow  in  Slavic  moulds. 
The     styles,     customs,    and     songs     of      our 

people 
Will  be  mighty,  alike  on  the  Seine  and  on  the 

Elbe." 

No  wonder  that  Kollar  tried  to  solace  him- 
self with  the  future,  for  the  present  in  which 
he  lived  was  dark  and  unpromising  enough. 
Safafik  had  counted  seventy  nine  millions  of 
Slavs  in  Europe  in  1842,  but  almost  as  many 
bondsmen  :  Bohemia,  the  vanguard  of  the 
race,  almost  German  ;  the  Illyrians  talking 
Italian  ;  the  Hungarian  Slavonians,  under  the 
tutelage  of  the  Magyars  ;  Servia  and  Bul- 
garia yet  unborn  ;  the  cultured  classes  in  Po- 
land and  Russia  affecting  French  manners  and 
language — it  will  be  remembered  that  around 
Elizabeth's  throne  a  whole  generation  grew 
up,  French  in  thought  and  education,  while 
under  Catherine  II.  the  aristocracy  was  more 


PANSLAVISM  21 

French  than  Russian  ;  many  of  the  historical 
traditions  forgotten  during  their  long  tenure  of 
servitude, — well  might  the  bard  bewail  the 
pitiable  state  of  the  Slavonians  ! 

If  Kollar  earned  for  himself  the  title  of 
"  Arch  -  priest  of  Panslavism,"  Paul  Joseph 
Safaf fk  ( 1 795- 1 86 1 )  deserves  to  be  called  a  Sla- 
vonic Deucalion,  because  he  peopled  Austro- 
Hungary,  Turkey,  Russia,  and  Prussia  with 
Slavonians  where,  before  his  time,  there 
had  lived  subject  races  only.  Like  Kollar, 
Safafik  was  of  Slovak  extraction  ;  yet  he  felt 
himself  to  be  a  Bohemian,  and  he  preferred  to 
write  in  German.  His  Slavic  Antiquities  is  a 
book  which,  to  use  Palacky's  words,  "will  live 
imperishable,  continuing  to  yield  bountiful 
fruit  so  long  as  the  Slavonians  and  their  his- 
tory shall  endure."  Of  different  temperaments 
and  inclinations — Safafik  was  a  scholar,  exact 
and  critical,  while  Kollar  knew  how  to  appeal 
to  one's  imagination  through  his  passionate 
ardor,  even  though  his  arguments  sometimes 
lacked  in  depth  and  discrimination,  Safafik 
and  Kollar  both  worked  toward  the  same  end, 
the  first  unconsciously,  may  be,  but  the  other 
with  a  design.  That  end  was  Slavonic  brother- 
hood, panslavism. 

Nationalization  had  come  to  the  race  later 


22  THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

than  to  most  European  people.  Although 
French  thought  in  the  eighteenth  century- 
dominated  all  Europe,  and  certain  Slavonian 
scholars  were  thoroughly  familiar  with  the 
labors  of  Montesquieu,  Voltaire,  and  Rous- 
seau, yet  it  cannot  be  said  that  the  national 
awakening  of  the  Slavs  was  the  work  of  the 
French.  Paris  was  too  remote  from  the  Bo- 
hemian Forest,  which  marks  the  westernmost 
Slavonian  line.  The  task  of  rousing  the  Slavs 
fell  to  their  nearest  neighbors,  the  Germans. 
Herder,  Kant,  Goethe,  Lessing,  and  Schiller 
took  their  first  lessons  in  the  mental  workshop 
of  the  philosophers  on  the  Seine.  In  their 
turn,  the  Slavonians  studied  under  the  tutor- 
ship of  these  Germans.  Though  unknowingly, 
Herder  sowed  the  first  germ  of  panslavism. 
Herder's  belief  in  the  higher  destiny  of  Slavoni- 
ans, not  yet  revealed,  and  his  ideal  humanity, 
captivated  one  after  another  every  Slavic 
thinker  of  note.  I  n  his  Ideen  zur  Philosophic  der 
Geschichte  der  Menschheit,  Herder  gave  utter- 
ance to  his  now  famous  prophecy,  that  the 
Slavonians,  until  then  held  in  a  thraldom  of 
oppression,  would  awaken  from  their  lethargic 
sleep,  and,  freeing  themselves  from  the  shackles 
that  bound  them,  would  again  recover  the 
ownership  of  their  vast  domain,  that  stretched 


PANSLAVISM  23 

from  the  Adriatic  Sea  to  the  Baltic,  and  from 
the  Don  to  the  Mulda,  and  devote  themselves, 
within  the  confines  of  this  magnificent  heri- 
tage, to  the  peaceful  cultivation  of  the  arts 
and  commerce.  Men  like  Dobrovsky,  Safafik, 
Kollar,  Palack^,  Celakovsky.  Surowiecki, 
Kopitar,  and  Jarnik  at  once  ranged  them- 
selves in  support  of  Herder's  theory,  helping 
to  disseminate  it  among  their  respective  peo- 
ple. Those  Slavic  lands  that  lay  nearest  to 
Germany,  or  were  tied  to  that  country  by  his- 
torical associations  in  the  past,  naturally  fell 
first  under  the  Herderian  spell.  Not  without 
interest  is  it  that  Leibnitz,  on  a  certain  occasion, 
addressed  himself  as  a  Slavonian  to  Peter  the 
Great.  The  monarch  and  the  philosopher  met 
at  Torgau  in  1 7 13,  and  during  a  conversation 
Leibnitz  said  to  Peter  :  "  We  are  both  of  Slavic 
ancestry.  You  have  wrested  the  world's 
mightiest  power  from  barbarism,  and  I  have 
founded  a  realm  of  equal  extent.  The  origina- 
tors of  a  new  epoch,  we  are  both  descendants 
of  that  race  whose  fortunes  none  can  foretell." 
By  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
the  work  of  nationalization  had  already  made 
startling  progress.  Every  new  book  that  left 
the  printing-press,  be  its  theme  Slavic  phil- 
ology or   history,  only  made    more   apparent 


24         THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

the  close  relationship  that  existed  between  the 
Russian  muzhik   and  the  Bohemian  peasant, 
the     Servian     shepherd     and    the    Dalmatian 
fisherman.     Simultaneously  the  discovery  was 
made  that,  with  the  exception  of  Russia,  every 
Slavic  country  suffered  more  or  less  from  the 
oppression  of    foreign  masters,  while  two   or 
three    were    threatened  with    absorption    by 
other  races.     With  such  gloomy  prospects  be- 
fore them,  it  was  only  natural  that  the  smaller 
nations,  anxious  to  save  themselves,  conceived 
the  idea  of  a  confederation.    The  reasoning  was 
perfectly  logical.      In   unity  lay  strength  and 
power,  as  the  Germans  had  demonstrated ;  in 
separation,  the   doom    of   the   Polabians  and 
Lusatian   Serbs,   now   almost   wholly  extinct, 
awaited  the  Slavs.     Chief  in  this  movement 
toward  confederation  were  the   Bohemians — 
the  most  advanced  of  all  the  Slavic  races,  but 
at  the  same  time  the   most  exposed   to   the 
perils  of  denationalization.     In  this  way  the 
Bohemians  earned  for  themselves  the  title  of 
"  Apostles  of  Panslavism." 

One  of  the  first,  if  not  the  very  first,  to 
make  an  issue  of  panslavism,  or  Slavic  reci- 
procity, that  being  a  more  accurate  term,  was 
Joseph  Dobrovsk^  (1753- 1829).  Studies  in 
Slavic  languages  had  drawn  him  to  this  capti- 


PANSLAVISM  25 

vating  subject.  Dobrovsk^  was  conscious  and 
proud  of  his  Bohemian  ancestry,  but  he  de- 
spaired of  the  future  of  his  nation.  As  Bo- 
hemians, his  countrymen  were  fated  to  die,  he 
thought ;  as  Slavonians,  they  might  survive. 
Hence  he  sought  and  found  consolation  in 
panslavism.  The  extent  of  the  Slavic  lands 
inspired  Dobrovsk^.  Reasoning  further,  he 
came  to  the  conclusion  that  the  Slavs,  like  the 
Germans,  should  adopt  one  common  tongue. 
In  course  of  time  they  might  even  succeed 
in  building  up  a  confederacy.  Another  Bo- 
hemian writer  who  found  comfort  and  assur- 
ance in  Slavic  fraternity  was  Joseph  Jungmann. 
Like  Dobrovsk^,  he,  too,  believed  it  to  be  a 
hopeless  undertaking  to  try  to  resuscitate  the 
Bohemian  nation,  then  almost  wholly  Ger- 
manized. Toward  Russia,  which  was  powerful 
enough  to  conquer  a  Napoleon,  Jungmann 
turned  his  hopeful  gaze.  Slavonians,  he  as- 
sured himself,  should  form  a  lingual  union  and 
select  as  a  common  language  the  Russian, 
that  being  the  tongue  of  the  strongest  branch 
of  the  race.  Jungmann's  views,  it  may  be 
said,  were  shared  by  the  majority  of  the  Bo- 
hemian patriots  of  that  time.  Kopitar,  a  noted 
Slovene  author,  advocated  the  founding  of  a 
Slavic  Academy  of  Sciences   in  Vienna,  and 


26  THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

he  made  other  suggestions  that  clearly  mark 
him  the  precursor  of  John  Kollar. 

Meantime  a  current  of  nationalism  had 
swept  over  the  face  of  Germany.  In  schools, 
literature,  public  press,  and  secret  societies  a 
war,  bitter  and  uncompromising,  had  been  de- 
clared against  everything  French.  "  Union  and 
Liberty  "  were  the  watchwords  that  went  the 
length  and  breadth  of  the  fatherland.  "  When 
united,  Germans  were  never  defeated ;  dis- 
united, always."  This  was  the  trend  of  Ger- 
man reasoning.  Of  this  teaching  the  university 
at  Jena  was  the  recognized  centre.  Safafik 
and  Kollar  studied  in  this  school.  Already 
before  their  coming  to  Jena  both  Safafik  and 
Kollar  were  ardent  nationalists.  Jungmann, 
the  Nestor  of  Bohemian  letters,  had  fired  their 
souls  with  notions  of  Slavonic  brotherhood. 
During  their  stay  at  the  university,  and  under 
its  immediate  influence,  these  sentiments  were 
probably  crystallized.  Quite  possibly  it  was 
at  Jena  that  the  two  Slovaks  conceived  the 
ambitious  plan  of  doing  for  the  Slavonians 
what  Lessing,  Herder,  Schiller,  and  Goethe 
were  doing  for  the  Germans.  Be  it  as  it  may, 
certain  it  is  that  Safafik  and  Kolldr  left  the 
university  thoroughly  convinced  that  what  was 
good  for  the  Germans  must  be  equally  bene- 


PANSLAVISM  27 

ficial  for  the  Slavonians,  and  that  if  the  Ger- 
mans clamored  for  "  Union  and  Liberty,"  the 
Slavic  nations  must  similarly  seek  unity  among 
themselves.  His  ideas  on  the  subject  Kollar 
explained  at  length  in  a  work  written  in  Ger- 
man in  1837,  and  entitled  On  Literary  Re- 
ciprocity among  the  Various  Branches  and 
the  Idioms  of  the  Slavic  Nation}  No  new 
ideas  were  contained  in  the  book, — nothing 
that  had  not  been  brought  out  by  other  Slavists, 
or  that  had  not  been  proposed  or  commented 
upon  by  them  in  newspaper  articles  or  private 
correspondence  or  confidential  discussions. 
To  Kollar,  however,  belonged  the  credit  of 
having  reduced  to  a  system  the  material  which 
had  been  accumulated  by  his  predecessors  and 
contemporaries.  His  notion  of  Slavonic  reci- 
procity and  fraternity  was  after  the  pattern 
of  other  writers.  He  essayed  to  make  the 
weak  strong  by  the  simple  process  of  associa- 
tion. Literary  reciprocity,  as  planned  by  him, 
would  not  disturb  established  institutions, 
either  of  State  or  Church  ;  above  all,  it  would 
not  lead  to  the  fusion  of  the  various  Slavic 
dialects  into  a  common  literary  language.  All 
that  it  required  was  that  a  Slavonian  who  had 

1  Ueber  die  literarische  Wechsclseitigkeit  zwischen  den  verse hiedene?i 
Stammen  und Mundarten  der  Slavischen  Nation. 


28  THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

attained  what  the  writer  designated  the  first 
decree  of  culture  should  learn  four  idioms — 
namely,  Russian,  Illyrian  (Servo-Croatian), 
Polish,  and  Bohemian.  Reaching  the  second 
degree,  our  Slavonian  should  already  be  able 
to  command  other  dialects  and  sub-dialects  ; 
while  he  who  had  elevated  himself  to  the  third 
or  last  class  should  show  familiarity  with  all 
the  Slavic  idioms  without  exception.  In  all 
cases  this  knowledge  should  be  lexicographi- 
cal at  least.  Benefits  from  such  literary  reci- 
procity would  be  many.  The  more  powerful 
branches  of  the  Slavic  family  would  in  this 
manner  be  constantly  reminded  of  the  exist- 
ence of  their  weaker  kinsmen.  To  smaller 
branches,  reciprocity  would  impart  strength 
and  assurance  ;  as  long  as  their  mother  tongue 
survived,  they  would  be  safe  and  secure,  even 
though  their  sovereignty  might  be  lost.  All 
tendencies  at  separation  should  be  combated 
and  suppressed.  Reciprocity  indicated  to 
Slavonians  the  way  to  their  great  mission 
among  the  nations  of  the  earth.  Belated  as 
had  been  their  appearance  on  the  stage  of 
world's  affairs,  nevertheless  a  glorious  future 
was  in  store  for  them.  Even  the  ways  and 
means  whereby  he  hoped  to  accomplish  his 
purpose  were  set  down  by  the  author.     Among 


PANSLAVISM  29 

others,  he  would  open  bookstores  making  a 
specialty  of  Slavic  literature  in  Slavic  capitals, 
establish  chairs  of  Slavic  lan^ua^es,  found 
circulating  libraries,  publish  panslavic  reviews, 
compile  comparative  grammars,  and  edit  folk- 
songs. Foreign  phrases  and  expressions  he 
would  eliminate  gradually,  replacing  them  with 
pure  Slavic  words,  to  the  end  that  the  race 
might  sooner  reach  the  goal  of  a  panslavic 
tongue — a  tongue  which  should  be  readily  in- 
telligible to  all  Slavs  of  whatsoever  branch. 

Kollar's  panslavistic  teachings,  as  expounded 
in  Literary  Reciprocity,  and  in  Slavias  Datigh- 
ter,  made  a  great  stir  in  Europe.  Many  there 
were  who  acclaimed  them  the  "  Slavic  Evan- 
gel," while  non-Slavonians,  and  of  those 
particularly  Austrian  Germans  and  Magyars, 
assailed  the  author,  condemning  his  theories 
as  dangerous  and  subversive. 

The  South  Slavonians  espoused  the  cause 
of  Slavonic  reciprocity.  However,  Ljudevit 
Gaj  (1809-1872),  their  brilliant  leader,  believed 
that  the  unity  of  his  own  countrymen,  who 
were  divided  by  religious  differences,  should 
precede  the  larger  union  of  all  the  Slavs. 
With  this  object  in  view,  Gaj  worked  for  the 
creation  of  Greater  Illyria,  which  should  in- 
clude all  the  South   Slavic   races,  known    by 


SO  THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

their  tribal  names  of  Slovenes,  Croatians,  Sla- 
vonians, Dalmatians,  Bosnians,  Crnogorci 
(Montenegrins),  Servians,  and  Bulgarians. 

The  Slovaks  more  than  any  other  people 
were  charmed  with  the  lessons  of  the  new 
evangel.  Kollar  and  Safafik  were  their  fellow- 
countrymen,  a  circumstance  that  insured  in- 
dulgent criticism  for  them,  to  say  the  least. 
But,  aside  from  this,  there  was  another  and 
deeper  consideration  that  prompted  them  to 
embrace  Kollar's  faith.  To  them,  threatened 
as  they  were  by  the  Magyars,  the  union  of  the 
Slavonians  promised  security.  Hence  we  see 
that  in  the  early  thirties  almost  all  educated 
Slovaks  rallied  around  Kollar's  banner. 

Through  students  attending  the  seminaries 
at  Prague,  Kollar's  panslavism  filtered  among 
what  there  was  left  of  the  Lusatian  Serbs. 
John  E.  Smoler  and  J.  P.  Jordan  became  the 
acknowledged  leaders  at  home. 

Under  Alexander  I.  of  Russia  even  the 
Poles  cherished  the  hope  that  the  Slavs  might 
eventually  group  themselves  around  Russia. 
Prince  Adam  Czartoryjski,  it  is  related  on 
good  authority,  never  ceased  to  remind  that 
democratic  and  enlightened  monarch  that 
Russia  should  re-establish  Poland.  After 
Napoleon  I.  had  broken  his  promises  to  them, 


y^u^eJ 


if&T  /& &/o^rcA. 


PANSLAVISM  31 

the  Poles  more  than  ever  clung  to  Russia. 
Stanislaw  Staszic  expressed  the  wish  that 
Russia  would  begin  the  great  work  of  re- 
demption of  the  Slavs  by  the  upbuilding  of 
Poland.  When  Alexander  died,  in  1825,  and 
Nicholas  I.  succeeded  him  on  the  Russian 
throne,  the  Poles  lost  faith  in  the  rectitude  of 
Russia's  intentions.  Only  those  of  them  that 
lived  under  the  Austrian  Government  sympa- 
thized with  Kollar's  ideas. 

The  Bulgarians  prior  to  1848  were  all  but 
unknown,  and,  singularly  enough,  the  "  Arch- 
priest  of  Panslavism "  had  forgotten  them 
entirely.  For  a  long  time  the  Bulgarians  con- 
tinued to  be  an  enigma  to  the  rest  of  the 
Slavs.  Dobrovsky  mistakenly  thought  that 
Bulgarian  was  a  dialect  of  the  Servian.  Kopitar 
could  throw  but  a  feeble  light  on  their  lan- 
guage in  181 5,  and  even  Safafik  was  unable  to 
describe  their  exact  location  or  state  their 
numbers  in  his  ethnography.  A  Moscow 
newspaper  as  late  as  1827  manifested  honest 
surprise  that  there  should  live  a  Christian 
people  in  European  Turkey,  speaking  an  un- 
known tongue  that  much  resembled  in  sound 
the  Old  Church  Slavic. 

When,  after  the  downfall  of  Napoleon  I., 
Alexander  I.  of  Russia  committed  himself  to 


52  THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

the  adventurous  fancy  of  a  universal  monarchy 
such  as  the  bold  Corsican  had  planned  but 
failed  to  realize,  the  Russian  court  sought  to 
win  the  good-will  of  the  rest  of  the  Slavo- 
nians to  that  scheme.  V.  N.  Karazin,  the 
author,  in  1804  called  the  court's  attention  to 
the  wretched  condition  of  some  of  the  smaller 
Slavic  nations,  and  when  the  Servians  appealed 
to  Russia  for  aid,  he  implored  the  Emperor, 
in  the  name  of  the  common  ancestry  and 
faith  which  united  the  two  peoples  together, 
to  render  the  help  needed.  Indeed,  this  com- 
munity of  faith  and  origin  played  an  all-im- 
porant  role  in  all  the  ensuing  wars  between 
the  Slav  and  the  Turk.  Panslavism  was  at 
one  time  propagated  by  a  class  of  vision- 
aries in  Russia  during  Alexander  I.  's  reign, 
who  banded  themselves  into  secret  societies 
for  that  purpose.  Of  this  class  was  a  "  Soci- 
ety of  United  Slavonians,"  founded  in  1823, 
which  hoped  to  unite  the  Slavonians  into 
a  confederacy.  Russia,  Poland,  Bohemia, 
Moravia,  Dalmatia,  Croatia,  and  Hungary 
were  to  be  welded  into  one  government,  the 
representatives  of  which  were  to  have  resided 
in  a  capital  centrally  located.  Alexander's 
successor  suppressed  this  and  other  similar 
societies,  being  opposed  on  principle  to  every 


MAP— SLAVIC  RACE 

ESTIMATED  at  145.000.000  ,„19<H. 

I.RUSSIANS.    H.  POLES. 
III.F.BOHEMIANSrSLOVAKS. 

V.  LUSATIANS. 

1.1.11. SOUTH  SLAVONIANS. 


PANSLAVISM  33 

radical  change  or  opinion.  When  Michael 
Pogodin  returned  home  from  his  journeys  in 
Slavic  countries  (1842)  the  idea  of  Slavonic 
reciprocity  more  than  ever  began  to  engross 
public  attention  in  Russia.  What  Kollar 
recommended  as  to  the  publication  of  a  Slavic 
review,  founding  of  libraries,  bookstores,  etc., 
Pogodin  urged  the  Russian  Government  to  do 
at  its  own  expense.  Later  the  term  "  Slavo- 
philes "  was  given  by  way  of  distinction  to  those 
of  the  Russian  leaders  who  interested  them- 
selves in  any  way  in  the  western  Slavs.  The 
names  of  Hilferding,  Lamanskij,  Aksakov,  and 
others  are  widely  known  in  this  connection. 

But,  while  universally  popular,  it  could  not 
be  said  that  Kollar's  all-Slavic  ideas  were 
unanimously  approved.  At  first  opponents 
were  few.  Charles  Havlicek,  the  fearless  Bo- 
hemian publicist,  was  the  first  to  raise  a  dis- 
senting voice.      "  Slavonians,"  wrote  Havlicek, 

"do  not  constitute  one  nation  but  are  divided 
in  four  nations,  each  being  as  independent  and 
distinct  from  the  others  as  any  European 
nation.  Each  branch  stands  by  itself,  for  good 
or  evil ;  neither  glory  nor  dishonor  is  theirs  in 
common.  Because  of  the  great  similarity  of 
Slavic  idioms,  it  is  both  useful  and  necessary 
for  the  different  Slavic  nations  to  keep  up  an 


34  THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

active  literary  fellowship  and  to  draw  recipro- 
cally from  the  literary  treasures  of  all.  As 
matters  now  are,  the  Bohemians  and  Illyrians 
are  the  only  ones  who  are  in  position  to  bene- 
fit one  another,  their  interests  not  clashing. 
For  all  Slavs  to  have  a  common 
literary  language  is  impossible,  and  endeavors 
toward  that  end  are  senseless.  Let  no  one 
point  to  the  Germans,  now  wedded  to  a  com- 
mon literature,  though  greater  dialectic  dif- 
ferences separate  them  than  us  Slavonians. 
Among  Germans,  political  unity  dates  back  to 
earlier  times,  and  the  conditions  which  were 
instrumental  in  creating  uniformity  of  letters 
are  wanting  among  Slavonians.  In  short,  I 
shall  proudly  say  '  I  am  a  Bohemian,'  but 
never  '  I  am  a  Slavonian.'  Whenever  I  call 
myself  a  Slavonian,  I  shall  always  mean  it  in 
an  abstract  sense,  geographically  or  ethno- 
graphically.  Slavonians  have  four  fatherlands 
and  not  one ;  Slavonic  patriotism  is  only  a 
shade  better  than  cosmopolitanism." 

In  1848  panslavism  had  reached  a  new  stage 
of  development.  Hitherto  it  had  found  ex- 
pression solely  in  literature  ;  now  the  time  had 
come  to  subject  it  to  a  practical  test.  A  revo- 
lutionary storm  had  begun  to  gather  in  Austria. 

The  first  clash  between  the  Slav  and  the 
Teuton  came  when  the  Germans,  yielding  to 
the   popular  demand  for  "  Ein   freies,  einiges 


PANSLAVISM  35 

Vaterland,"  met  in  Frankfort,  in  March,  1848, 
and  invited  the  Austrian  people  to  send  repre- 
sentatives to  their  parliament.  Austria  was 
not  German,  and  the  Slavonians,  who  constitu- 
ted a  majority  in  that  empire,  resented  the  idea 
of  being  incorporated  in  the  new  "  Deutsches 
Reich."  As  planned  by  the  Frankfort  Diet, 
Greater  Germany  was  to  have  included  Bohe- 
mia, Silesia,  Moravia,  and  Illyria — lands  inhab- 
ited by  Slavonians.  The  nations  living  in  the 
Hapsburg  monarchy  promptly  took  issue  on 
the  Frankfort  Parliament.  As  a  rule,  the  Aus- 
trian Germans  were  in  favor  of  sending  depu- 
ties there  ;  the  Slavonians  for  the  same  reason 
bitterly  opposed  it.  The  Vienna  Government 
did  not  know  what  to  do.  In  one  sense  partial 
to  the  Frankfort  Parliament,  in  another  it  felt 
distrust.  While  anxious  to  have  a  deciding 
voice  there,  Minister  Ficquelmont  feared 
that,  eventually,  Frankfort  might  defeat  him 
at  home.  He  had  no  objection  to  Austrians 
taking  part  in  the  election,  if  he  could  control 
it.  With  unrestricted  suffrage,  the  probabilities 
were  that  the  majority  of  electors  would  vote 
for  a  republic.  "  Let  us  remain  Germans,  while 
continuing  to  be  Austrians,"  declared  Ficquel- 
mont in  a  burst  of  wise  patriotism.  A  situa- 
tion bordering  on  anarchy  was  produced,  when 


$6         THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

the  ministry  at  last  made  public  its  decision 
that  it  would  neither  order  the  election  nor  yet 
prohibit  it,  but  would  leave  the  right  to  vote 
or  not  to  vote  to  the  discretion  of  each  citizen. 
On  April  10,  1848,  Francis  Palacky,  the  Bo- 
hemian historian,  received  an  invitation  to  take 
part  in  the  deliberations  of  the  parliament. 
Unhesitatingly  Palacky  declined  the  honor. 
On  the  following  day,  April  nth,  his  letter 
had  already  left  Prague.  The  document  was 
worthy  of  that  great  historian's  reputation. 
Palacky  well  knew  that  his  letter  to  the  pre- 
siding officer  of  the  diet,  Soiron,  must  be  broad 
enough  to  speak  for  all  the  Austrian  Slavs, 
whom  the  government  was  either  unwilling  or 
unable  to  protect.  "  I  am  a  Bohemian  of  Slavic 
origin,"  wrote  he  to  Frankfort,  "and  whatever 
I  now  possess  or  may  yet  own  I  have  conse- 
crated wholly  and  forever  to  the  good  of  my 
nation.  Small  in  numbers  is  this  nation,  yet 
since  time  immemorial  it  has  maintained  its 
individuality  and  sovereignty ;  true,  its  rulers 
have  for  ages  been  parties  to  the  league  of 
German  princes,  but  the  nation  has  never  re- 
garded itself  as  one  with  the  German  nation, 
nor  have  others  classed  it  as  such  during  all 
these  centuries.  The  relations  of  Bohemia, 
such  as  they  were,  first  with  the  Holy  German 


PANSLAVISM  37 

Empire  and  thereafter  with  the  Bund,  were 
always  a  pure  formality  of  which  the  Bohemian 
people  and  their  Estates  took  little  or  no 
notice.  ...  It  is  a  matter  of  public  know- 
ledge that  German  Emperors,  as  such,  had  no 
relations  with  the  Bohemian  nation  ;  that  they 
were  not  vested  with  any  rights  in  or  over 
Bohemia,  either  legislative,  judicial  or  execu- 
tive ;  that  at  no  time  had  they  the  power  to 
levy  armies  or  order  contributions  of  any  kind; 
that  Bohemia,  including  her  crown-lands,  never 
formed  part  or  parcel  of  any  of  the  ten  German 
states  of  those  times ;  that  the  mandates  of  the 
highest  court  of  the  realm  did  not  apply  there  ; 
in  fine,  that  the  past  connection  between  Bo- 
hemia and  the  German  Empire  should  be  re- 
garded not  in  the  nature  of  a  union  between 
nations,  but  as  a  league  between  rulers.  Who- 
ever now  urges  that  this  league  of  princes 
should  give  room  to  a  union  between  the  Bohe- 
mian and  German  nations,  advances  a  new 
postulate,  utterly  at  variance  with  the  past." 

The  diet  at  Frankfort  was  still  in  session 
when  the  following  proclamation  appeared  in 
Slavonic  newspapers  published  in  Austria : 

"  Desirous  of  unity,  the  Germans  have 
summoned  to  meet  at  Frankfort  a  parliament 


38  THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

which  calls  on  the  Austrian  monarchy  to  sur- 
render so  much  of  its  independence  as  is  in- 
dispensable to  German  plans,  requesting  it, 
furthermore,  to  join  the  Germanic  Empire  with 
all  its  lands,  excepting  Hungary.  Such  a  step 
would  not  only  result  in  the  disruption  of  Aus- 
tria, but  would,  at  the  same  time,  bring  about 
the  isolation  and  effacement  of  the  Slavic 
races  and  imperil  their  nationality.  Duty  im- 
poses it  upon  us  to  bravely  defend  that  which 
is  most  holy  to  us.  The  time  has  arrived  for 
us  Slavonians  to  meet  in  conference  and  agree 
on  a  common  cause  of  action.  Therefore,  in 
response  to  numerous  calls  addressed  to  us 
from  several  Slavic  lands,  we  hereby  take  pleas- 
ure in  inviting  all  Slavonians  from  Austria, 
urging  especially  men  who  enjoy  the  confi- 
dence of  their  people  and  who  have  the  welfare 
of  the  public  at  heart,  to  meet  in  the  ancient 
Slavonic  Prague  of  Bohemia  on  the  31st  day 
of  May  of  this  year,  to  the  end  that  we  may 
jointly  take  counsel  on  all  matters  pertaining 
to  the  well-beincr  of  our  nations  and  which  the 
exigencies  of  these  troublous  times  require. 
Slavonians  living  without  the  boundaries  of 
the  monarchy  who  may  desire  to  honor  us 
with  their  presence  will  be  cordially  welcome 
as  guests.     Prague,  May  1,  1848." 

Signed  to  the  proclamation  were  the  names 
of  men  eminent  in  letters  and  public  life. 
Who  first  conceived  the  idea  of  a  panslavic 


PANSLAVISM  39 

congress?  It  was  said  that  it  emanated  from 
the  pen  of  a  Croatian  journalist  by  the  name 
of  Ivan  Kukuljevic — a  warm  advocate  of  Kol- 
lar's  panslavism.  Be  this  as  it  may,  the  sug- 
gestion met  with  instant  favor  :  as  a  retaliatory 
measure  against  Frankfort,  and  as  a  warning 
to  Germans  and  Magyars  to  cease  persecut- 
ing the  Slavonians,  the  congress  promised 
to  relieve  a  situation  that  seemed  wellnigh 
intolerable.  By  June  2d,  when  it  was  form- 
ally opened,  there  were  in  Prague,  to  attend 
the  congress,  42  deputies  from  South  Slavic 
countries,  61  Poles  and  Little  Russians  from 
Galicia,  and  237  Bohemians,  Moravians,  and 
Slovaks. 

It  will  be  noticed  that  the  committee  on 
arrangements,  in  sending  out  invitations,  drew 
a  fine  distinction  between  Austrian  Slavonians 
and  Slavs  in  general.  The  first-named  alone 
were  eligible  to  membership ;  non-Austrian 
Slavs  were  to  be  received  as  guests  only. 
This  was  by  no  means  unintentional.  The 
Bohemians  who  were  heading  the  movement 
were  everywhere  being  made  out  to  be  rabid 
Russophiles,  and  unless  the  congress  was  to 
stand  accused,  justly  or  unjustly,  before  Eu- 
rope, of  making  propaganda  for  the  Tsar,  pru- 
dence and  tact  made  this  restriction  imperative. 


40         THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

None  the  less  the  promoters  were  overwhelmed 
with  abuse  from  the  Magyars,  hemmed  in  as 
they  were  by  disaffected  Slavic  populations, 
and  by  the  partisans  of  Frankfort,  the  latter 
asserting  that  the  Slavs  were  about  to  set  up 
an  opposition  "  Slavonic  Confederacy,"  to  with- 
stand their  Germanic  Empire.  Document- 
ary proof  is  extant  to  show  that,  acting  on 
Kossuth's  advice,  Premier  Batthyany  lodged  a 
protest  in  Vienna,  in  the  name  of  the  Hunga- 
rian Government,  against  the  congress  taking 
place.  Failing  to  prevent  it  altogether,  Eszter- 
hazy,  who  represented  the  Hungarians  in  the 
capital  of  the  monarchy,  was  to  have  devised  a 
plan,  with  the  co-operation  of  the  Vienna  Gov- 
ernment, whereby  the  gathering  might  be 
made  to  appear  before  the  world  as  a  sort  of 
Bohemian  provincial  diet.  At  any  rate  the 
Poles  from  Galicia  were  to  be  deterred,  either 
by  threats  or  promises,  from  going  to  Prague. 
How  the  congress  alarmed  the  Magyars  and 
how  furiously  opposed  they  were  to  it  is  proved 
by  the  letters  of  Kollar  and  Wett,  now  on  file 
in  the  land  archives  at  Prague.  Under  date 
of  June  i,  1848,  J.  Wett  writes  from  Pest: 
"  Great  was  our  joy  that  we  might  all  meet  in 
Prague  on  May  31st.  However,  the  moment 
our  Pest  newspapers  printed  an  account  of  the 


PANSLAVISM  41 

congress,  threats  of  the  most  violent  nature 
were  made  by  the  Magyar  public  against  Kol- 
lar ;  he  was  given  to  understand  that  if  he 
ventured  to  go  to  Prague,  it  would  cost  him 
his  life."  In  a  tearful  letter,  bearing  the  same 
date,  Kollar  excused  himself  to  Palack^  for  his 
inability  to  attend  :  "  A  few  days  ago  a  Mag- 
yar soldier  sent  a  message  to  me  through  the 
regimental  bandmaster  to  the  effect  that  he 
would  shoot  me  on  sight  if  I  went  to  the 
congress." 

Preparatory  labors  being  finished,  the  very 
first  business  of  the  congress  was  to  issue  a 
manifesto  to  European  nations.  "  The  Pan- 
slavic  Congress  now  convened  in  Prague," 
says  this  manifesto,  "  is  a  novel  occurrence  in 
Europe  and  a  new  experience  for  us  Slavoni- 
ans. For  the  first  time  since  history  mentions 
our  name,  the  scattered  members  of  this  wide- 
spread family  of  nations  have  congregated  in 
larger  numbers  from  distant  lands,  that  we 
might  become  better  acquainted  among  our- 
selves and  might  peacefully  and  like  brothers, 
as  we  are,  deliberate  on  affairs  that  concern  us 
all  alike.  Not  only  have  we  succeeded  in  mak- 
ing ourselves  understood,  as  far  as  concerns 
our  melodious  language,  spoken  by  eighty 
millions   of   people,    but   also  by   our   hearts 


42  THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

beating  in  unison  and  by  the  sameness  of  our 
intellectual  aims."     Continuing,  the  manifesto 
explains  the  difference  in  the  past  between  the 
Germans  and  Latins,  invariably  bent  on  con- 
quest,  and  the  peace-loving  Slavonians  who, 
one  after  another,  were  deprived  of  freedom 
and  independence,  but  now,  when  the  old  order 
of  things  is  about  to  pass  away,  have  stepped 
forward  to  reclaim  their  lost  heritage  of  free- 
dom— freedom  for  all,  irrespective  of  caste  or 
race.      "  Liberty,    equality   and   fraternity   of 
every  citizen  is  again  our  motto  as  it  was  a 
thousand  years  ago."     The  manifesto  defends 
the  principle  of  equal  rights  before  the  law ; 
reproves  the  Germans  and  Magyars  for  their 
contemptuous   claim    to   superiority   over  the 
Slavonians  ;  repudiates  the  charge  of  "  political 
panslavism,"   the  spectre  which  had  been  in- 
vented by  malicious   people   for  the   obvious 
purpose    of  discrediting   the   congress   before 
Europe,  but  against  which  the  remedy  is  sim- 
ple— justice  to  Slavic  people  ;    makes  a  digni- 
fied yet  forcible  appeal  to  Prussia  to  desist  in 
her  cruel  persecution  of  Poles  and  of  Lusatian 
Serbs  ;  remonstrates  with  the  Magyars  for  de- 
nying equal  rights  to  Hungarian  Slavonians; 
gives    expression    to   the   hope    that   kinsmen 
groaning  under  Turkish  despotism  might  soon 


PANSLAVISM  43 

be  freed.  In  conclusion  the  manifesto  moves 
the  establishment  of  a  recurrent  tribunal  of 
nations  for  the  peaceful  settlement  of  all  in- 
ternational disputes,  thus  foreshadowing  The 
Hague  Tribunal. 

Among-  the  labors  that  were  left  unfinished 
was  a  petition  to  the  Hapsburg  ruler.  This 
demanded  the  reconstruction  of  Austria  as  a 
federal  empire,  which  alone  is  capable  of  guar- 
anteeing the  sovereignty  and  inviolability  of 
the  many  races  living  there.  The  meddling 
of  Germans — this  referred  to  the  Frankfort 
Diet — in  Austrian  home  affairs  should  neither 
be  encouraged  nor  tolerated.  What  the  Sla- 
vonians  contend  for  is  a  powerful,  sovereign 
Austrian  state. 

A  multitude  of  other  motions  and  propo- 
sitions remained  equally  uncompleted,  for  on 
June  1 2th,  exactly  ten  days  after  it  had  been 
opened,  the  congress  came  to  a  sudden  and 
unexpected  close.  Prague  was  plunged  in  the 
throes  of  a  revolution. 

"The  '  Bloody  Easter  Week'  that  followed 
interrupted  the  work  of  the  Slavic  Congress," 
comments  a  noted  Bohemian.  "  The  dele- 
gates dispersed,  some  of  them  being  ordered 
away,  others  leaving  voluntarily,  because  it  was 
inadvisable  to  continue  in  their  work  in  a  city 


44  THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

under  martial  law.  For  this  reason,  and  no 
other,  further  sittings  were  discontinued,  the 
congress  terminating  abruptly.  However, 
these  events  only  suspended  its  deliberations, 
failing  to  defeat  them.  Not  one  of  the  dele- 
gates in  attendance,  much  less  the  municipal 
bodies  and  people  electing  them,  relinquished 
the  object  before  them :  to  make  effectual 
and  final  the  unification  of  the  Slavonians  who 
come  under  the  Austrian  rule  ;  to  secure  for 
Slavonians,  in  accordance  with  the  grand  prin- 
ciple of  equality  of  nations,  those  rights,  invio- 
late and  inviolable,  that  are  by  nature  inherent 
in  all  people  alike  ;  to  elevate  the  Austrian 
Slavs  to  that  degree  of  worth  that  is  theirs  by 
reason  of  their  culture  and  numerical  strength, 
as  compared  with  the  other  natives  of  Austria. 
The  Slavic  Congress  was  intended  to  lay  the 
first  corner-stone  of  this  new  policy  of  brother- 
hood. The  fact  that  it  was  interrupted  by 
untoward,  uncontrollable  circumstances,  due  to 
the  plottings  of  enemies,  does  not  justify  the 
assumption  that  the  cause  was  either  aban- 
doned or  that  the  deliberations  were  in  vain, 
just  as  the  happenings  in  Prague  had  not  put 
a  bar  to  the  great  mission  of  the  Slavs  among 
civilized  mankind,  nor  diminished  the  weight 
of  the  Slavs  in  Austria  in  particular.  Agree- 
ably to  an  expressed  wish  of  the  departing 
delegates  the  congress  was  only  adjourned,  to 
reconvene  at  some  future;  time,  to  finish  what 
it  had  been  prevented  from  doing  at  its  first 
sion." 


PANSLAVISM  45 

Although  none  of  the  plans  of  the  congress 
were  put  into  execution,  still  it  cannot  be  said 
that  it  was  wholly  without  result.  The  good 
fellowship  formed  at  Prague  continued  there- 
after to  be  a  fountain  of  hope  and  force  to  Aus- 
tro-Slavism.  Nor  was  this  the  last  meeting  of 
Slavonians.  Once  grown  intimate,  the  newly- 
found  relatives  have  never  again  allowed 
themselves  to  lose  sight  of  each  other.  The 
next  gathering  of  note  took  place  in  Moscow, 
Russia,  in  1867,  on  the  occasion  of  the  Ethno- 
graphic Exhibition,  held  in  that  city.  Except- 
ing the  Poles,  representatives  of  the  entire 
Slavonic  family  were  present  at  that  meeting. 
And  because  the  exhibition  at  Moscow  hap- 
pened to  take  place  in  the  same  year  in  which 
dualism  had  been  first  put  in  operation  in 
Austria,  whereby  Magyars  and  Germans  fondly 
hoped  to  make  lasting  their  hegemony  over 
the  Slavonians,  a  hostile  press  saw  more  than 
a  mere  coincidence  in  this.  It  was  represented 
as  a  threat  aimed  at  Austria.  Kollar's  phan- 
tom Slavonic  confederacy  again  began  to  cast 
its  shadows  over  Central  Europe  and  to  plague 
the  consciences  of  statesmen.  The  Bohemian 
delegates  to  Moscow,  among  whom  were  Fran- 
cis Palacky,  Francis  L.  Rieger,  Dr.  Brauner, 
Charles  Jaromir  Erben,  Baron   Villani,  Julius 


46    THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

Gregr,  and  Joseph  Manes,  were  publicly 
charged  with  treason.  Shortly  before  his 
death,  Rieger,  the  venerable  leader  of  the 
Bohemians,  then  in  his  eighty-third  year,  said, 
apropos  of  this  shameful  calumny,  in  a  lecture 
which  he  delivered  before  the  "Slavic  Club" 
in  Prague  : 

"  What  is  the  signification  of  Slavonic  re- 
ciprocity ?  Our  enemies  have  invented  the 
word  'panslavism'  for  it,  and  persistently 
claim  that  we  contemplate  the  founding  of  a 
Slavonic  confederacy,  under  Russian  protec- 
tion. Such  a  contention  is  manifestly  false 
and  absurd.  Only  the  other  day  a  Vienna 
newspaper  criticised  me  bitterly  for  having 
attended  the  Moscow  exhibition  in  1867.  Can- 
not an  intelligent  person  go  to  any  exposi- 
tion he  pleases  ?  If  I  live  thirty  years  longer  I 
shall  still  be  reproved  for  making  the  journey, 
I  believe.  At  the  banquet  at  Sokolinky,  near 
Moscow,  where  I  spoke,  I  made  it  known  in 
no  uncertain  lan^ua^e  that  a  Slavic  confed- 
eracy  was  out  of  question.  Slavonic  States — 
I  repeat  what  I  had  said  then — must  be  like 
so  many  chimes  ringing  in  harmony." 

At  this  same  ethnographical  exhibition  Rie- 
ger declared  emphatically  that, 

"  in    fraternizing,    the    Slavs    had    no    politi- 
cal  objects  in   view.      The  ideals  which  were 


PANSLAVISM  47 

agitating  them  were  not  and  must  not  be 
inimical  to  the  peace  of  other  nations.  As 
always,  it  is  still  true  that  whatever  there  is  in 
panslavism  of  a  political  nature  is  due  to  dis- 
satisfaction of  some  sort  or  other.  Remove 
that,  and  panslavism  will  have  no  reason  to 
exist." 

In  conclusion,  let  us  say  a  few  words  about 
panslavism  in  Hungary,  with  special  relation 
to  the  Slovaks. 

To  begin  with,  every  Magyar's  political 
education  includes  a  belief  in  panslavism.  A 
thousand  years  have  elapsed  since  the  wreck- 
ing of  the  Great  Moravian  Kingdom  on  the 
fields  of  Pressburg,  but  patriotic  Magyars  still 
see  Svatopluk's  ghost  hovering  over  that 
monarch's  former  domains.  According  to  a 
popular  theory,  prevalent  among  them,  pan- 
slavism is  a  dangerous  political  movement, 
which  is  directed  not  only  against  the  crown 
of  St.  Stephen  but  against  Austria  and  Turkey 
as  well.  If  a  person  reads  a  Slovak  newspaper, 
or  salutes  a  stranger  with  "  dobry  den,"  instead 
of  the  Magyar  "jo  napot,"  he  stands  self-con- 
victed of  being  a  panslav  ! 

At  a  recent  trial  of  a  prominent  Slovak 
journalist  for  political  libel,  an  intelligent  wit- 
ness for  the  prosecution  was  asked  as  to  his 


48         THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

understanding  of  the  term  "  panslav."  The 
answer  of  the  witness  was  that  a  panslav  was 
one  who  did  not  feel  himself  a  Magyar  at 
heart.  A  professor  of  jurisprudence  defined 
panslav  as  a  person  who  was  regarded  as  such 
in  the  community  in  which  he  lived.  At  the 
same  trial,  the  attorney  for  the  defendant, 
Isidor  Ziak,  made  a  remarkable  plea  for  his 
client  : 

"  Gentlemen  of  the  jury,  the  verdict  you 
render  in  this  case  will  be  watched  with  breath- 
less interest  by  thousands,  nay,  millions,  of 
Slovaks.  Baron  Eotvos  has  said  that  one  may 
live  without  happiness,  but  not  without  hope. 
What  a  splendid  opportunity  you  have,  gentle- 
men of  the  jury,  to  rekindle  this  hope,  now 
almost  dead,  in  the  breasts  of  the  Slovaks  by 
acquitting  their  beloved  writer.  But  the  real- 
ity is  sad,  and  though  it  may  be  customary 
among  lawyers  to  plead  for  mercy  for  clients 
who  stand  accused  of  heinous  crimes,  I  shall 
not  make  such  an  appeal  to  you  ;  for,  having 
lost  all,  let  it  not  be  said  of  us  that  we  have 
begged  in  places  where  justice  and  mercy  do 
not  exist  for  us." 

And  the  unfortunate  journalist  was  convicted, 
not  because  he  was  guilty,  unless  it  be  guilt  to 
love  and  cherish  one's  native  tongue,  but  be- 
( ause  In-  was  a  panslav  ! 


PANSLAVISM  49 

Recently  a  troupe  of  Bohemian  actors  from 
Moravia  made  an  attempt  to  play  at  Kosice 
(Kassa)  in  Upper  Hungary,  but  the  local 
press  saw  a  dangerous  panslavist  agitation 
in  the  performance  and  the  manager  was  re- 
fused the  necessary  license.  For  the  same 
reason,  panslavism,  the  choir-master  at  Kosice 
was  forbidden  to  render  in  the  church  Anton 
Dvorak's  beautiful  Stabat  Mater.  Very  no- 
torious  is  the  case  of  Rev.  John  Skultety, 
who  was  disciplined  by  his  bishop  for  having 
baptized  a  child  by  the  name  of  "  Cyril."  The 
bishop  had  no  fault  to  find  with  Cyril  as  a 
saint,  he  said,  but  he  would  not  tolerate,  in  his 
diocese,  the  baptism  of  children  by  the  name 
of  panslavic  saints.  Skultety 's  argument  that 
the  child  received  the  name  of  Cyril  because  it 
had  been  born  on  that  saint's  day  was  futile, 
and  that  the  Cyril  chosen  by  him  was  not  the 
great  panslavic  Apostle  Cyril  ;  the  bishop  re- 
mained obdurate  !  A  student  in  a  seminary 
who  may  be  fond  of  Slovak  literature  is  in 
imminent  danger  of  being  expelled  for  pan- 
slavist cabals ;  likewise  a  teacher's  career  is 
blasted  and  his  name  entered  on  the  black  list 
of  panslavs  the  moment  he  begins  to  be  sus- 
pected of  writing,  even  clandestinely  and  under 
a  pseudonym,  for  Slovak  publications. 


50         THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

Magyars  like  to  point  to  Gabriel  Ugron's 
utterance  in  the  land  diet  to  the  effect  that 
"the  trees  of  all  the  races  in  the  Hapsburg 
monarchy  are  planted  in  other  countries  than 
Austria,  and  that,  having  no  kinsmen  in  Eu- 
rope, the  Magyars  are  the  only  people  who  are 
destined  to  live  and  to  die  there."  The  in- 
stinct of  self-preservation  tells  them  to  stand 
by  the  empire.  Should  they  become  disloyal 
to  it,  that  moment  the  dynasty  of  the  Haps- 
burgs  is  doomed  to  fall.  History,  they  claim, 
has  assigned  to  them  the  task  of  stemming 
the  aggression  of  the  Slavs,  just  as  in  the  past 
they  formed  a  bulwark  against  the  Turks. 

Let  us  reason  a  little.  If  it  be  true,  as 
Ugron  contends,  that  the  various  nationalities 
of  which  Austro-Hungary  is  composed  have  a 
tendency  to  gravitate  outside  the  boundaries 
of  that  monarchy,  and  that,  for  instance,  the 
Germans  wink  at  Berlin  and  Vienna,  that  the 
Servians  look  for  sympathy  to  Belgrade,  and 
the  Rumuns  court  the  favor  of  Bucharest, 
whither  do  the  Slovaks  gravitate  ?  Toward 
the  Bohemians,  who  are  their  nearest  and 
most  natural  allies  ?  Certainly  not.  To  prove 
the  truth  of  this  statement  one  only  needs  to 
mention  their  separation  from  Bohemian 
literature.      Do  they  seek  their  centre  in  St. 


PANSLAVISM  51 

Petersburg  ?  For  centuries  the  Slovaks  have 
inhabited  Hungary,  admittedly  longer  than 
the  Magyars  themselves,  have  fought  and 
bled  in  defence  of  the  fatherland  jointly  with 
others  of  their  fellow-citizens.  Yet,  how  many 
plots  are  charged  to  them  to  further  the  alleged 
cause  of  panslavism?  Not  one.  Prosecuting 
attorneys,  when  trying  journalists  for  political 
libel,  are  in  the  habit  of  making  sinister  allu- 
sions to  Russian  subsidies.  Have  these  base 
insinuations  ever  been  substantiated  with 
proof  ? 

"  False,  one  and  all,  are  the  accusations  that 
Slovak  nationalists  are  in  communication,  in 
any  way,  with  any  of  the  Slavic  committees,  or 
that  they  receive  pecuniary  aid  from  them," 
angrily  retorted  Paul  Mudron,  on  one  occasion. 
"  If  there  were  an  iota  of  truth  in  all  this,  why 
should  the  Slovak  journals  all  suffer  for  lack  of 
funds  ? " 

But  did  not  the  teachings  of  Kollir,  Sa- 
farik,  Hodza,  Stur,  Hurban,  and  of  the  other 
panslavs  lead  the  Slovaks  to  revolt  against 
Magyar  intolerance  in  1848  ?  Yes.  However, 
it  is  equally  a  matter  of  common  knowledge, 
even  though  one  may  not  read  of  it  in  Hunga- 
rian history,  that  Kossuth  issued  an  ultimatum 


52    THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

to  the  Hungarian  Slavs  in  his  organ,  the  Pcsti 
Hirlap,  that  whatever  rights  they  claimed  to 
have  in  the  kingdom  they  must  make  good, 
sworJ".  in  hand.  Was  there  any  alternative 
left  after  this  challenge  but  to  resort  to  arms  ? 
The  Slovaks  have  time  and  again  sent  dele- 
gates to  the  periodical  gatherings  of  Slavoni- 
ans, and  this,  too,  is  brought  against  them  as 
evidence  of  panslavism  and  disloyalty.  Since 
when  is  it  wrong  to  yield  to  the  natural 
promptings  of  fraternity  and  consanguinity  ? 
Surely,  it  is  not  in  the  province  of  any  tempo- 
ral power  to  repress  that  inborn  feeling. 


v 


THE    SLOVAKS:    PAST    AND    PRES- 
ENT. 

TTUNGARY  is  now,  and  has  been  for  cen- 
*  *  turies,  a  multi-national  country.  Owinw 
to  its  proximity  to  the  Roman  Empire,  of 
which  at  one  time  it  constituted  a  province, 
it  was  the  stamping  ground  of  many  barbar- 
ous nations.  The  Huns,  Goths,  Gepidae,  Lom- 
bards, and  Avars  occupied  it  successively. 
Now,  Magyars,  Slavonians,  Germans,  and  Ru- 
muns  jostle  one  another  there.  Until  recently 
no  one  race  had  an  absolute  majority,  which  is 
very  strange  indeed,  considering  the  length  of 
time  each  had  been  domiciled  there. 

If  we  concede  the  claims  of  the  Rumuns, 
whose  main  strength  is  in  Transylvania,  that 
they  are  the  descendants  of  Roman  colonists 
and  of  Romanized  natives,  they  may  be  re- 
garded as  the  most  ancient  living  nation  in 
Hungary.  Next  to  the  Rumuns  in  point  of 
antiquity  come  the  Slavonians,  known  as  Slo- 
vaks in  the  northwest,  as  Croatians  and  Servi- 
ans in  the  south,  between  the  rivers  Drave  and 

53 


54         THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

Save,  and  as  Slovenes  (Slovinci),  sometimes 
called  Wends,1  in  the  west.  To  be  sure,  there 
were  scattered  settlements  of  Germans  in  the 
country  as  early  as  the  Slavonians,  but  the 
bulk  of  the  German  colonists  arrived  in  com- 
paratively recent  times,  after  the  expulsion  of 
the  Tatars  and  Turks.  The  same  may  be  said 
of  the  Little  Russians  whose  coming  is  assigned 
to  the  fourteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries. 

"What  do  we  know  of  Slovak  history? 
Very  little.  Beginning  with  the  Hussite 
wars,  our  knowledge  is  somewhat  more  accu- 
rate. But  before  the  days  of  the  Hussites, 
that  is,  before  the  fifteenth  century,  the  past 
seems  securely  hidden.  And  yet  the  Slovak 
people  had  lived  over  a  thousand  years  in  their 
fatherland  before  the  outbreak  of  the  Hussite 
wars." 

Such  is  the  mournful  admission  of  Prof. 
Pastrnek,  a  noted  scholar. 

There  was  a  time  when  Slovakland  was  pro- 
claimed the  cradle  of  the  Slavic  race,  the  lan- 
guage spoken  there  the  nearest  approach  to 
the  Old  Slavic,  and  its  people  the  autochthon- 
ous inhabitants  of  Hungary.  Recent  investiga- 
tions have,  however,  failed  to  sustain  any  of 

'Also  incorrectly  designated  as  Winds  and   Windisch,   but  since 

1S48  officially  termed  Sloweiu  n,  Slovenes,  Slovinci, 


PAST  AND  PRESENT  55 

these  high  claims  and  contentions.  "  To-day 
it  is  agreed,"  says  Niederle,  "  that  the  seat  of 
the  aboriginal  Slavs  must  be  looked  for  in 
Transcarpathia,  in  the  region  bounded  by  the 
rivers  Vistula  and  Dnieper."  Even  the  belief 
in  the  antiquity  of  the  Slovak  dialect  is  not 
shared  by  modern  scholars.  Some  time  in 
the  fifth  century  the  Bohemians  and  Moravians 
left  their  ancient  abodes,  in  White  Croatia, 
moving  west.  Their  nearest  kinsmen,  the  Slo- 
vaks, followed  them,  taking,  however,  a  more 
southerly  course  that  led  them  along  the 
rivers  Morava  (March),  Van  (Vag)  and  Hron 
(Gran),  down  to  the  Danube.1 

Here  they  seized  the  land  that  had  been 
abandoned  by  the  Gepidae,  the  Heruli,  and  the 
Rugi,  which  they  have  held  continuously  ever 

'"lam  really  convinced,"  says  Prof.  Niederle,  "  that  the  Slavoni- 
ans entered  Hungary  from  the  north  some  time  before  the  fourth  and 
fifth  centuries,  and  if  the  hypothesis  which  is  being  accepted  more 
and  more  by  west  Slavonian  archaeologists  is  correct,  namely,  that 
the  burial  grounds  known  as  urn  fields,  of  the  Lusatian-Silesian  type 
and  which  are  common  throughout  eastern  Germany  of  old,  are  evi- 
dences of  Slavonian  culture,  marking  the  footprints,  so  to  say,  of 
Slavonians  advancing  toward  Germany,  then  in  that  case  we  should 
be  justified  in  assigning  the  arrival  of  the  Slavonians  from  Transcar- 
pathia to  Slovakland  to  prehistoric  times.  For  in  Slovakland,  too, 
finds  of  the  same  kind  have  been  made:  burial  grounds  near  Piichov 
(Pucho),  Domanik  (Domehaza),  Medovarce  (Me'znevelo),  and  Lisov 
(Liso).  The  existence  of  these  grounds  proves  that  those  who  made 
them  have  advanced  in  pre-Christian  times  from  the  Vistula  to  the 
valley  of  the  Vah  and  of  the  Iiron  as  far  as  Ilont  County." 


56         THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

since.  Slovensko,  the  Land  of  the  Slovaks,  is 
first  referred  to  by  name  in  860  by  King 
Lewis.1  At  present, — the  ethnical  conditions 
have  changed  little,  if  at  all — the  Slovaks  oc- 
cupy a  territory  comprising  the  counties  of 
Pozsony,  Nyitra,  Bars,  Hont,  Zolyom,  Trenc- 
sen,  Turocz,  Arva,  Lipto,  Szepes,  Saros,  Zem- 
pldn,  Ung,  Abauj-Torna,  Gomor,  and  Nograd, 
called  in  Slovak  language :  Presporok,  Nitra, 
Tekov,  Hont,  Zvolen,  Trencfn,  Turec,  Orava, 
Liptov,  Spis,  Sarys,  Zemphn,  Uzhorod,  Abauj- 
Torna,  Gemer,  Novohrad.  To  the  counties 
here  enumerated  should  be  added  Borsod 
(Borsod)  with  a  large  Slovak  population, 
Pest-Pilis-Solt-Kiskun  (Pest-Pilis),  Esztergom 
(Ostrihom),  and  Komarom  (Komarno).  This 
territory  is  bounded  on  the  north  by  the  semi- 
circular chain  of  the  Carpathian  Mountains 
and  on  the  west  by  the  river  Morava.  On  the 
south  and  east  there  is  no  topographical  de- 
markation.  A  well-defined  ethnical  line  is  all 
that  separates  the  Slovaks  from  the  Magyars 
and  the  Little  Russians.  How  many  Slovaks 
there  are  in  Slovensko  proper  ~  and  in  the  rest 

1  Many  writers  insist  that  Slovensko  is  an  unwarranted  translation 
of  a  Latin  name  used  by  King  Lewis. 

•  Says  Andrew  Kmct:  "How  many  Magyars  and  Germans  are 
scattered  over  our  territory  it  i-*  hard  i<>  say,  but  surely  their  numbers 
will   not  exceed   the   number  of   Slovaks  who    again  live  in  sections 


PAST  AND  PRESENT  57 

of  the  country,  is  a  matter  of  speculation. 
Official  figures  set  the  number  down  at  1,900,- 
000.  The  true  figure  is  nearer  2,500,000  or 
even  3,000,000. 

So  nearly  related  in  language  and  origin  are 
the  Slovaks  and  the  Bohemians  and  Moravi- 
ans that  they  may  be  said  to  have  a  common 
history.  Between  the  Moravians  and  Slovaks, 
dwelling  near  each  other,  the  relationship  was 
especially  close.  From  the  meagre  and  con- 
fused accounts  that  have  come  down  to  us,  it 
would  appear  that  at  one  time  Slovakland 
formed  the  nucleus  of  the  Great  Moravian 
Kingdom ;  that  native  princes  related  by 
blood  to  the  Moravian  reigning  house  ruled 
the  people  from  the  town  of  Nitra  (Nyitra)  ; 
that  the  Moravian-Slovak  Kingdom  extended 
far  beyond  the  river  Danube,  into  a  territory 
called  Pannonia.  Over  this  Great  Moravia 
ruled  successively  Princes  Rostislav,  Pribina, 
Kocel,  and  Svatopluk.  Here  it  was  that  the 
Slovaks  first  heard  the  wonderful  story  of 
Christ  from  the  Slavonic  Apostles,  Cyril  and 
Methodius  (863).  Here,  too,  the  art  of  written 
speech  was  taught  to  them.     Under  Svatopluk 

other  than  those  that  make  up  Slovakland,  so  that,  if  we  applied  the 
process  of  elimination  in  this  particular  instance,  it  would  be  seen 
that  Slovakland  is  all  ours." 


58  THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

the  kingdom  reached  the  zenith  of  power  and 
glory.     With  his  death  it   began    to  decline, 
falling  in    ruins   at   the   memorable  battle  of 
Pressburg  in  907.    What  transpired  in  Slovak- 
land  after  the  disruption  of  Great  Moravia  by 
the  Germans  and  Magyars  has  not  been  made 
clear.      It  would  seem,  though,  that  not  only 
the  Magyars,  but  the  Poles,  Germans,  and  Bo- 
hemians as  well,  tried  to  secure  for  themselves 
a  portion  of  Svatopluk's  inheritance.     The  re- 
sult of  the  many-sided   contest  was  that  the 
Magyars  seized  Pannonia  and  the  flat  lands 
between    the    Danube    and   the    Theiss ;    the 
Germans   took  the  country  situated  west   of 
Pannonia ;    Moravia  and  Slovakland  became 
the  prize   of   Bohemians  and  later  on  of  the 
Poles.      Exactly  at  what  period  the  Slovaks 
were  made  subjects  of  Hungary,  is  also  dis- 
putable.    Magyars  pretend  to  believe  that  the 
event  occurred  during  the  reign  of  St.  Stephen, 
the    first    Hungarian    king,  who   ushered    the 
country  into  the  community  of  European  civil- 
ization.    According  to  their  version  of  it,  King 
Stephen  made  a  successful  war  on  Mecislaw  of 
Poland,  and,  taking  Slovakland   from  that  po- 
tentate, annexed  it  to  his  own  crown,  to  which 
it  has  belonged  ever  since.      It  is  a  significant 
fact,  though,  that  prior  to  1075  no  direct  refer- 


PAST  AND  PRESENT  59 

ence  is  made  to  Slovensko  in  any  of  the 
documents  issued  by  King  Stephen  ;  and, 
while  that  pious  monarch  built  numerous 
ecclesiastical  edifices  in  Pannonia  and  in  his 
possessions  on  both  sides  of  the  river  Theiss, 
it  is  not  known  that  he  erected  a  single  church 
or  monastery  in  northern  Hungary.  An  old 
chronicle  says  that  in  the  year  1000  the  Polish 
boundaries  extended  to  the  banks  of  the 
Danube.  From  this  it  would  seem  that 
Slovakland  did  not  belong  to  Hungary  in 
Stephen's  time,  but  if  it  did,  was  all  but  un- 
known to  the  court  of  that  King.  The  Car- 
pathian Mountains,  overgrown  as  they  were 
with  dense  forests,  presumably  offered  few  at- 
tractions to  the  Magyar  horsemen  of  the  plains 
and  no  opportunity  for  exploitation. 

Merged  in  the  Hungarian  crown,  the  Slo- 
vaks  ceased  to  exist  in  a  political  sense. 
Henceforward  they  began  to  share  in  com- 
mon with  the  other  people  the  glories  and  mise- 
ries of  Hungary. 

The  Tatar  invasion  of  northern  Hungary 
occurred  in  1241.  It  lasted  a  year.  A  pecul- 
iar interest  attaches  to  it  because,  indirectly, 
it  laid  the  foundation  to  the  colonization  of 
Slovakland  by  foreigners,  chiefly  Germans. 
Such    devastation    the    relentless    barbarians 


60         THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

wrought  there  that  in  many  places  not  a  soul 
was  left  alive.  Only  those  who  sought  and 
found  refuge  in  mountain  recesses  and  forti- 
fied places  escaped  with  their  lives.  This 
condition  of  things  prompted  several  kings,  be- 
ginning with  Bela  IV.,  to  invite  alien  homeseek- 
ers  to  Hungary.  The  Germans  were  especially 
favored  in  the  matter  of  privileges.  Besides 
giving  them  large  tracts  of  land  free,  an  ex- 
ample that  was  followed  in  several  instances 
by  the  clergy  and  the  nobility,  the  crown  con- 
ferred on  the  Germans  the  right  to  be  governed 
by  their  own  local  laws  and  customs.  Only 
judges  of  their  nationality  were  competent  to 
try  them  and  the  testimony  of  a  fellow-coun- 
tryman was  alone  admissible.  Non-German 
witnesses  were  disqualified  from  testifying. 
Such  numbers  of  Germans  appeared  to  have 
taken  advantage  of  these  unusual  opportuni- 
ties that  in  the  sixteenth  century  there  was 
not  a  place  in  Slovakland  but  had  German 
settlers.  Eminently  builders  of  cities,  these 
Teutons  and  their  descendants  became  a  for- 
midable power  in  the  country,  in  the  course  of 
time.  Most  of  the  commerce  and  all  of  the 
trade  gradually  centred  in  the  cities  which  they 
had  established  and  to  which  they  success- 
fully refused  to  admit  Slovaks  and    Magyars 


PAST  AND  PRESENT  61 

alike.  Around  these  towns,  some  of  which 
were  noted  for  their  opulence,  was  eventually 
formed  a  valuable  element  of  Hungarian  popu- 
lation, namely,  the  middle  classes.  While  the 
peasants  and  the  nobility  continued  to  hold 
fortified  castles  and  the  villages,  the  Germans 
were  in  control  of  the  cities.  During  the 
Turkish  irruption  many  noble  families  from 
the  south  fled  there  to  save  themselves  from 
the  violence  of  Mohammedan  soldiers.  Being 
fortified  and  walled,  these  cities  were  the  only 
places  that  could  offer  any  resistance  to  the 
invaders.  And,  because  the  German  burghers 
would  not  willingly  receive  them,  a  law  was 
passed  in  1563,  making  it  compulsory  for 
towns-people  to  admit  within  the  gates  of 
their  cities  all  refugees,  irrespective  of  nation- 
ality. At  first  the  law  was  flagrantly  violated, 
the  Germans  having  powerful  influence  at 
court ;  but  in  1604,  after  the  outbreak  of  the 
Bocskay  Rebellion,  which  had  found  a  hearty 
support  in  Slovakland,  sweeping  changes  were 
made  in  the  law.  All  Hungarians  were  put 
on  the  same  footing  in  the  towns  and  cities  as 
the  Germans.  This  was  a  serious  blow  to  the 
privileges  and  exclusiveness  of  the  Germans  ; 
from  that  time  on  their  influence  began  to 
wane  and  nothing  could  save  them,  not  even 


62  THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

the  efforts  of  Emperor  Joseph  II.,  who  planned 
to  make  Hungary  a  German-speaking  country. 
It  is  believed  that  in  the  sixteenth  and  seven- 
teenth centuries  the  Germans  in  the  Slovak 
territory  must  have  numbered  some  1,000,000 
souls.  To-day  only  about  30,000  are  left  on 
the  boundaries  of  the  counties  of  Tekov, 
Nitra,  and  Turec.  A  somewhat  larger  colony 
has  survived  in  Spis  County. 

There  are  but  few  instances  on  record  of 
Slovaks  rebelling,  resenting  their  vassalage  to 
an  alien  race.  They  first  gave  vent  to  their 
political  hopes  and  ambitions  in  the  fourteenth 
century.  Then  the  Slovaks,  led  by  Matthew 
Csak  (Csaky),  otherwise  known  as  "  Matthew 
of  Trencin,"  bade  defiance  to  Charles  Robert, 
the  Anjou  King.  What  led  to  this  occurrence 
may  be  briefly  told  :  In  1301,  the  male  line  of 
the  Arpad  kings  became  extinct.  Three  reign- 
ing houses,  Bohemian,  German,  and  Italian, 
who  claimed  to  be  related,  in  some  way  or 
other,  to  the  female  branch  of  the  Arpdds, 
offered  candidates  for  the  vacant  throne.  All 
three  claimants  soon  had  supporters  in  the 
kingdom,  After  some  deliberation  the  Es- 
tates chose  Vaclav  II.,  King  of  Bohemia.  That 
prince,  thinking  possibly  that  the  cares  and 
honors  of  one  crown  were  all  he  cared  to  bear, 


PAST  AND  PRESENT  63 

sent  to  the  Hungarians  a  substitute  in  his  son, 
Vaclav  III.,  at  that  time  a  boy  of  thirteen.  To 
this  selection  Pope  Boniface  VIII.  promptly 
objected.  Vaclav  the  elder,  we  are  told,  was 
a  good-natured,  easy  going  monarch  ;  and  fear- 
ing violence  to  his  child,  and  despairing  of  ever 
overcoming  the  opposition  of  the  Roman  See, 
he  caused  Vaclav  III.  to  leave  Buda  in  1305 
and  come  home  to  Prague. 

Vaclav's  irresolute  action,  it  may  be  im- 
agined, was  productive  of  instant  mischief. 
Charles  Robert,  aided  by  the  influence  of 
Rome,  now  seized  the  crown  that  he  coveted, 
but  opposition  was  strong  and  almost  uni- 
versal. Powerful  nobles  rose  up  in  arms 
against  him  on  every  side.  He  had  the  throne 
but  not  the  obedience  of  his  subjects.  Of  all 
the  rebels,  Matthew  Csak,  the  "  Lord  of  the 
Vah  and  Tatra,"  as  he  liked  to  style  himself, 
was  the  most  formidable.  Nobles,  zemans, 
peasants,  and  shepherds  flocked  to  his  standard 
and  willingly  submitted  to  his  authority.  From 
his  castle  at  Trencin,  on  the  river  Vah, 
Matthew  ruled  over  a  vast  domain  comprising 
the  greater  part  of  the  Slovakland  of  to-day. 
Some  thirty  fortified  castles  belonged  to  him. 
In  splendor  and  magnificence  he  vied  with  the 
King  at  Buda.     Such  was  his  power  and  the 


64         THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

magic  of  his  name  that  to  this  day  people  are 
wont  to  call  that  part  of  the  country  where 
he  once  ruled  "  Matthew's  Land."  Csak  held 
out  longer  than  any  of  the  other  oligarchs. 
Neither  the  wiles  of  the  King,  nor  the  anathe- 
mas of  the  Pope,  who  had  excommunicated 
him,  could  bring  him  into  submission.  Pre- 
cisely what  his  plans  were,  or  for  what  price 
the  "  Lord  of  Van  and  Tatra  "  was  willing  to 
lay  down  arms,  will  never  be  known.  It  may 
be  surmised,  though,  that  the  haughty  rebel's 
ambition  kept  pace  with  his  increasing  power, 
and  that  when  at  the  summit  of  his  might  he 
dreamed  at  his  Trencin  castle  of  emulating  the 
great  deeds  of  Svatopluk.  Why  not  ?  The 
people  were  with  him.  They  had  not  yet  for- 
gotten Great  Moravia.  Affairs  in  the  country 
at  larofe  were  unsettled  and  otherwise  it  seemed 
that  the  time  was  propitious  for  a  bold  move. 

Charles  Robert,  it  seems,  divined  Csak's 
schemes.  Subduing  by  force  or  persuasion 
the  nobles  who  opposed  him,  he  prepared  a 
supreme  effort  against  the  chief  rebel.  With 
a  large  army  he  entered  Slovakland.  At 
Rozhanovce  (Rozgony),  near  the  river  Torysa, 
the  armies  of  the  King  and  of  Csak  met,  in 
131  2.  The  Slovaks  fought  bravely  ;  but  they 
were  overwhelmed  by  numbers  and  defeated. 


PAST  AND  PRESENT  65 

On  this  bloody  battle-field  perished,  at  one 
blow,  the  nucleus  of  a  future  Slovak  state  that 
had  been  gradually  forming  around  Trencin 
Castle. 

For  over  five  hundred  years  after  Matthew 
Csak  had  ended  his  brief  but  remarkable  career 
the  Slovaks  remained  inactive.  The  furies  of 
war  had  swept  the  hillsides  of  their  mother 
country,  drenching  it  with  the  blood  of  its 
defenders.  During  the  war  for  the  Hungarian 
crown  between  John  Zapolya  and  Ferdinand 
I.,  following  the  disaster  at  Mohacs  (1526),  the 
Highlands  bore  the  brunt  of  the  fighting,  for 
the  Slovak  nobility  sided  with  Zapolya.  The 
evil  rule  of  the  Turk  had  come  and  passed 
away.  The  invention  of  the  art  of  printing, 
followed  by  the  Reformation,  had  revolution- 
ized human  thought  in  Europe.  Yet  the  Slo- 
vak people  could  not  be  stirred  to  independent 
action.  It  was  not  till  the  tocsin  of  revolution 
had  sounded  on  the  banks  of  the  Seine,  in  1848, 
that  these  children  of  Svatopluk,  like  other 
people  who  were  enthralled,  began  to  feel  a 
sudden  longing  for  freedom.  Led  by  Stiir, 
H urban,  and  Hodza,  a  part  of  the  Slovak 
nation  rose  in  arms  and  demanded  for  itself  the 
same  rights  for  which  the  Magyars  were  con- 
tending with  Austria. 


66         THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

Since  Svatopluk's  time  nothing  has  influ- 
enced the  Slovak  mind  in  a  higher  degree  than 
the  Hussite  religious  movement  in  Bohemia. 
With  the  high  tide  of  the  Hussite  wars  the 
Slovaks  received  from  their  near  Bohemian 
neighbors  a  precious  gift,  a  Bible  printed  in 
the  language  of  Hus  and  Komensky,  and  it 
was  probably  this  Hussite  Bible  that  saved  the 
nation  from  extinction,  leading  it  later  on  to 
join  the  Bohemian  republic  of  letters. 

The  Hussites  raided  northern  Hungary 
more  than  once,  for  Sigismund,  who  broke 
faith  with  John  Hus  in  141 5,  was  King  of 
Hungary  and  of  Bohemia  both.  But  these 
raids  were  only  a  prelude  to  bloodshed  that 
was  yet  to  come.  King  Albrecht  of  Haps- 
burg  died  in  1439  without  issue.  It  became 
necessary  to  elect  a  successor.  Two  powerful 
parties  arose  at  once.  Elizabeth,  the  Widow 
Queen,  gave  birth  to  a  posthumous  child, 
known  in  history  as  Ladislav  the  Posthumous. 
All  Slovakland,  except,  possibly,  the  counties 
of  Hont  and  Novohrad,  ranged  itself  on  the 
side  of  the  Queen  and  of  her  son.  The  Ger- 
mans generally  also  took  up  the  Queen's 
cause.  The  Magyars,  however,  cast  their 
fortunes  with  Vladislav  I.  of  Poland.  Bitter 
and  relentless  civil  war  was  the  result.     In  the 


PAST  AND  PRESENT  67 

beginning  the  warfare  was  carried  on  by  indi- 
vidual oligarchs  or  by  people  of  this  or  that 
county.  To  prosecute  her  claim  more  vigor- 
ously, Queen  Elizabeth  retained  a  renowned 
Hussite  captain,  John  Jiskra  of  Brandos. 
This  adventurous  soldier  with  his  Bohemian 
troops  seized  the  eastern  and  middle  part  of 
Slovensko.  Another  captain,  Pongrac,  held 
the  western  counties  for  Ladislav  Posthumous. 
In  1444  Vladislav  fell  at  Varna,  battling  with 
the  Turks ;  and  the  Hungarian  Estates  at  last 
recognized  Ladislav's  rights  to  the  crown,  pro- 
viding, however,  that  during  his  minority  John 
Hunyadi  should  act  as  regent.  The  action  of 
the  diet  did  not  stop  the  civil  strife  entirely, 
neither  John  Jiskra  nor  Pongrac  being  willing 
to  recognize  Hunyadi's  regency.  Not  until 
Ladislav  was  old  enough  to  reign,  himself,  was 
there  again  peace  in  northern  Hungary.  Al- 
together the  Hussite  troops  remained  about 
twenty  years.  Their  settlements  were  espe- 
cially strong  in  the  counties  of  Gemer,  Hont, 
Novohrad,  Zvolen,  Liptov,  Trencin,  and  Ni- 
tra.  Judging  from  the  solid  dwellings  and 
churches  they  built,  it  would  seem  that  they 
intended  to  settle  permanently  with  their  fam- 
ilies in  Hungary.  Some  of  the  churches  con- 
structed by  them  are  still  standing  and  easily 


68  THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

distinguishable  by  their  peculiar  architecture. 
Originally  the  churches  served  the  dual  pur- 
pose of  places  of  worship  in  time  of  peace  and 
strongholds  in  time  of  public  disquiet.  Owing 
to  the  Hussites  and  to  their  teaching,  Luther's 
Reformation  in  the  sixteenth  century  found 
a  large  portion  of  the  Slovak  nation  ready  to 
embrace  the  new  faith.  During  the  Reforma- 
tion scores  of  teachers  and  ministers  of  the 
gospel  came  from  Bohemia  and  Moravia  to 
work  among  the  native  Slovaks,  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  many  students  from  that  country 
went  to  seek  education  in  the  University  of 
Prague.  After  the  disastrous  battle  of  the 
White  Mountain,  Bohemian  Protestants  again 
flocked  to  Slovensko  to  escape  religious  perse- 
cution at  home.  Every  new  arrival  added  a 
valuable  element  of  strength  to  the  literary 
unity  of  Bohemia,  Moravia,  and  Slovensko 
that  lasted  until  the  time  of  Anton  Bernolik, 
who  codified  the  Slovak  language  and  who 
inaueurated  the  secession  movement  from  the 
Bohemian. 


March,  1848,  is  the  fateful  month  which 
forms  the  line  of  demarkation  between  the  old 
and  the  new  order  of  things  in  Austria.     Be- 


PAST  AND  PRESENT  69 

fore  March,  Metternich  and  his  invidious  sys- 
tem of  absolutism — after  March,  the  dawn  of 
liberty  and  constitutionalism.  On  March  3d 
Louis  Kossuth  yet  spoke  of  the  "  poisoned  air 
that  issued  from  the  charnel  house  in  Vienna," 
and  already  on  March  17th  events  had  taken 
such  a  surprising  turn  that  he  could  exclaim 
joyously  :  "  We  have  attained  all  that  we  con- 
tended for.  From  now  on  our  mistress  shall 
be  Pest  and  not  Vienna." 

The  news  that  Louis  Philippe  had  forfeited 
his  crown  to  the  French  republicans  in  Feb- 
ruary, 1848,  travelled  quickly  to  every  corner 
of  the  Hapsburg  monarchy.  All  at  once  the 
several  races  began  to  clamor  for  civil  liberty 
and  equal  rights.  In  Hungary  not  only  the 
Magyars,  but  the  Slovaks,  Croatians,  Servians, 
and  Rumuns  as  well,  formulated  their  partic- 
ular grievances  and  claims.  In  some  respects 
these  claims  were  antagonistic  to  each  other, 
although  by  no  means  irreconcilable,  and,  un- 
happily for  the  cause  of  freedom  in  that  land, 
no  wise  measures  had  been  provided  for  to 
bring  them  into  harmony.  Hungary's  first 
gift  from  the  sovereign  consisted  in  a  re- 
sponsible ministry  ;  but  this  body  of  repre- 
sentative men,  influenced  by  Kossuth,  almost 
from  the   day  of  its   organization   committed 


70         THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

itself  to  a  policy  that  was  certain  to  offend  and 
repel  all  or  nearly  all,  save  the  Magyars. 

The  first  public  manifestation  on  a  large 
scale  among  the  Slovaks  occurred  on  May 
ioth  at  Liptov  (Lipto  Szt.  Miklos).  Six  arti- 
cles, supposed  to  contain  the  wishes  of  the 
people,  were  unanimously  adopted.  In  sub- 
stance these  articles  were  : 

"  We  demand  that  our  people  be  permitted 
to  take  part  in  the  legislative  deliberations  of 
the  land,  and  this  not  only  in  law  but  in  fact. 
And  as  such  participation  can  alone  become 
real  and  profitable  when  conducted  in  a  lan- 
guage that  is  intelligible  to  us,  we  ask  for  our 
representatives  the  right  to  speak  Slovak  in 

the  diet. 

"  We  demand  the  right  to  plead  and  answer 
cases  in  the  courts  of  law  in  Slovak. 

"We  demand  that  the  school  training  of 
our  youth,  which  is  now  so  wofully  neglected, 
be  carried  on  in  the  mother  tongue. 

"  We  demand  a  just  and  equitable  represen- 
tation in  the  diet. 

"  We  demand  for  ourselves  and  shall  forever 
ask  that  our  nationality,  which  we  will  never 
renounce,  remain  inviolate  and  inviolable. 

"  We  demand  that  this  petition  be  made 
known  within  the  entire  jurisdiction  of  Hun- 
gary, in  Croatia,  and  Slavonia,  and  may  be 
brought  to  the  notice  of   the   viceroy  and   of 


PAST  AND  PRESENT  71 

the  Hungarian  ministry,  to  the  end  that  all 
friends  of  liberty  and  humanity  may  plead  our 
just  cause." 

Unwonted  activity  pervaded  the  atmos- 
phere of  Slovakland  in  the  spring-  of  1848. 
Everywhere  open-air  meetings  were  held,  in 
larger  towns  the  audiences  running  into  the 
thousands.  Equality  and  liberty,  the  mainte- 
nance and  defence  of  the  Slovak  language  in 
the  schools,  judiciary,  and  administration,  were 
the  keynote  of  them  all.  The  Liptov  pro- 
gram was  indorsed  by  a  dozen  towns,  supple- 
mented here  and  there  by  subordinate  local 
needs. 

Kossuth  and  his  followers  at  first  affected 
to  treat  the  situation  in  Slovakland  with  lordly 
unconcern.  What  resistance  could  be  offered 
by  an  untutored  mass  of  peasants  just  emerg- 
ing from  mediaeval  conditions — a  people  who 
hardly  knew  the  meaning  of  the  word  "  Slovak," 
preferring  in  their  ignorance  to  be  called 
Highlanders,  Lowlanders,  Trencans,  Liptovans, 
Protestants,  Catholics,  Sarisans,  and  what  not  ? 
Kossuth,  himself  of  Slovak  extraction  on  his 
mother's  side,  well  divined  that  it  was  not 
Slovakland  that  needed  careful  watching.  The 
real    danger  lurked  elsewhere,   in    the   south, 


72  THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

among"  the  warlike  Servo-Croatians  in  Croatia, 
Slavonia,  and  Dalmatia. 

Croatia  and  Slavonia,  although  "  annexed 
parts"  of  Hungary  since  1102,  are,  in  a  politi- 
cal sense,  as  free  and  independent  as  Hungary 
herself.  These  lands  have  their  home  gov- 
ernment, with  a  ban  or  governor  at  the  head, 
but,  by  virtue  of  their  relation  to  the  Hun- 
garian Kingdom,  send  forty  deputies  to  the 
parliament  at  Pest.  On  matters  common  to 
the  whole  crown,  all  deputies,  including  those 
from  Croatia  and  Slavonia,  have  a  vote  ;  when 
affairs  are  under  discussion  that  concern  Hun- 
gary alone,  the  deputies  from  the  annexed 
lands  have  no  voice.  In  a  way,  then,  Hungary 
may  be  said  to  have  two  parliaments,  one  aug- 
mented, in  which  all  the  deputies  participate, 
the  other  limited  to  representatives  of  Hun- 
gary proper.  Dalmatia,  which  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  twelfth  century  was  united  to 
Hungary,  now  belongs  to  Austria. 

The  relations  between  the  Croatians  and 
Magyars  were  not  always  of  the  friendliest, 
and  immediately  prior  to  the  Revolution  they 
were  at  snapping-point.  Two  main  reasons 
were  accountable  for  this  hostile  feeling.  In 
the  first  place,  most  Croatians  accused  Hun- 
gary of  undue  meddling  in  their  home  affairs. 


PAST  AND  PRESENT  73 

Then  again  Ljudevit  Gaj's  scheme  of  United 
South  Slavonia,  or  "  Ulyria,"  as  he  termed  it, 
had  legions  of  enthusiastic  partisans  south  of 
the  Drave.  Needless  to  say  that  every  loyal 
Hungarian  detested  the  thought  of  "  Illyria." 

On  March  20th  a  popular  assembly  took  place 
at  Zagreb  (Agram),  the  Croatian  capital,  which 
was  attended  by  many  South  Slavonians  of 
prominence.  This  national  assembly  passed 
a  set  of  bold  resolutions,  indorsing  the  plan 
of  Illyric  unity  as  elaborated  by  Gaj.  Other 
things  that  the  convention  demanded  were 
freedom  of  speech  and  press,  the  election  of  a 
House  of  Representatives  intended  to  meet 
alternately  at  Zagreb,  Osek,  Zadr,  and  Fiume, 
and  the  garrisoning  at  home  of  native  regi- 
ments. But  the  most  far-reaching  act,  as  sub- 
sequent events  have  proved,  was  that  the 
delegates  present  nominated  and  elected  on 
the  spot,  as  viceroy  or  Ban  of  Croatia,  Colonel 
Joseph  Jelacic.1 

The  election  of  Jelacic  by  a  popular  vote 
was,  of  course,  illegal  and  contrary  to  prece- 
dent ;  but  the  Emperor-King,  gracefully  yield- 
ing to  the  inevitable,   confirmed  the  election 

1  Jelacic  de  Buzim,  also  spelled  Jellacic,  or,  in  the  old-fashioned 
way,  Jellachich,  is  the  name  of  an  ancient  noble  family,  originally 
from  Bosnia. 


74    THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

of  the  ban  a  few  days  before  a  deputation  of 
Croatians,  that  was  to  have  espoused  their 
countryman's  cause,  had  arrived  in  Vienna.  If 
it  be  true  that  coming  events  cast  their  shad- 
ows before  them,  the  governments  in  Vienna 
and  Pest  could  have  guessed  what  sort  of 
man  they  would  have  to  cope  with  in  the 
new  ban,  judging  from  the  tenor  of  the  mani- 
festo whereby  that  soldier  convoked  the  Cro- 
atian Constituent  Assembly  a  few  days  after 
his  installation  :  "  That  will  be  the  ri^ht  course 
for  us  to  pursue  which,  disregarding  the  pres- 
ent Hungarian  Government,  will  adjust  our 
relations  with  Hungary  along  the  lines  of 
liberty  and  independence,  as  is  worthy  of  a 
free  and  brave  people." 

Among  the  very  first  acts  of  Jelacic  was 
the  abolition  of  serfage.  Restrictions  were  re- 
moved from  the  press.  A  national  militia  was 
reorganized.  Magyar  officials  and  renegades 
were  removed  from  office  and  everywhere 
replaced  by  nationalists.  Magyar  correspond- 
ence from  Pest  was  returned  to  the  senders 
unopened.  What,  however,  angered  Pest 
above  all,  was  the  issuance  by  the  ban  of  an 
order  to  all  municipalities  throughout  Croatia 
and  Slavonia  enjoining  them  neither  to  receive 
nor  to  execute  orders  other  than  those  from  the 


PAST  AND  PRESENT  75 

office  of  the  ban  in  Zagreb.  Plainly  this  meant 
the  severance,  judicial  and  legislative,  of  Croa- 
tia and  Slavonia  from  Hungary. 

Encouraged  by  the  apparent  success  of  the 
Croatian s,  the  Servians  who  are  massed  in  the 
southeastern  part  of  Hungary  also  began  early 
to  show  signs  of  restlessness.  Both  of  Sla- 
vonic origin,  and  speaking  substantially  the 
same  dialect,  the  Croatians  and  Servians  differ 
only  in  the  religion  they  profess,  the  Croatians 
being  Catholics,  and,  as  such,  using  the  Latin 
alphabet,  while  the  Servians,  who  are  Ortho- 
dox, adhere  to  the  Cyrillic. 

On  previous  occasions  the  Hungarians  have 
succeeded  in  checkmating  the  national  wishes 
of  Croatians  and  Servians  by  playing  skilfully 
on  their  religious  differences.  A  deputation 
numbering  several  hundred  persons  called  on 
Metropolitan  Rajacic,  urging  him  to  summon 
the  Servians  to  meet  at  once  to  take  counsel 
on  their  exclusive  affairs.  Accordingly,  the 
Metropolitan  sent  out  a  call  for  a  Constituent 
Assembly,  to  meet  on  May  13th,  at  Novy  Sad 
(Ujvid^k).  However,  an  order  was  issued 
from  Pest,  changing  the  date  to  May  27th 
and  enjoining  the  participants  to  refrain  from 
the  discussion  of  political  questions.  But  the 
Metropolitan  chose  to  ignore  the  government 


76         THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

at  Pest,  and,  as  the  town  of  Nov£  Sad  had 
been  placed  under  martial  law,  instructed  the 
delegates  to  meet  at  Karlovac  instead.  Thou- 
sands of  Servians  from  every  district  of  the 
kingdom  came  to  this  truly  national  gathering. 
Even  from  the  Servian  principality  delegates 
arrived.  Among  the  many  memorable  resolu- 
tions passed  by  this  novel  parliament  was  one 
declaring  the  Servian  people  politically  free 
and  independent  under  the  united  rule  of  Aus- 
tria and  Hungary,  creating  a  "  Vojvodina," 
or  "  Land  of  the  Servians,"  and  lastly  elect- 
ing unanimously  as  its  chief  Colonel  Stephen 
Suplikac.  It  could  not  escape  notice  that  the 
newly-elected  "vojvoda"  and  the  ban  were 
brother  officers  in  the  same  regiment.  Also, 
that  the  Servians  agreed  then  and  there  to 
co-operate  harmoniously  with  the  Croatians. 

Most  backward  of  all  the  nationalities  in 
Hungary,  the  Rumuns,  too,  were  drawn  in  the 
whirlpool  of  discontent,  demanding  what  they 
considered  to  be  their  own. 

Portentous  events  were  now  fast  develop- 
ing in  the  several  centres  of  the  monarchy. 
Vienna  seething  with  political  excitement, 
and  centre  of  an  agitation  which  favored 
the  ambitious  plan  of  the  Frankfort  Parlia- 
ment ;  Prague  in  feverish  anticipation  of  the  ap- 


PAST  AND  PRESENT  77 

proaching  Slavonic  Congress  that  was  to  meet 
there  on  June  2d,  and  which  was  to  protest 
against  the  bartering  of  Slavonic  Austria  to 
Greater  Germany  ;  Pest  on  the  eve  of  an 
open  rebellion  against  the  camarilla  in  Vienna, 
but  at  the  same  time  dealing  heavy  blows  to 
the  national  aspirations  of  the  non-Magyar 
Hungarians  ;  Zagreb  distrusting  both  Vienna 
and  Pest  and  determined  to  strike  out  inde- 
pendently, if  necessary.  The  Slovak  high- 
landers,  who  were  already  wide  awake  to  the 
situation,  fast  becoming  critical,  gave  up  all 
hope  of  relief  from  Kossuth's  government, 
which  spurned  them  and  turned  their  eyes  to 
the  Prague  Congress  and  to  the  parliament  in 
Vienna.  Several  bloody  collisions  between  the 
populace  and  the  military  had  already  taken 
place,  when,  on  June  5th,  the  first  freely  elected 
Croatian  Diet  convened  in  Zagreb. 

Imposing  in  the  extreme  were  the  cere- 
monies of  the  opening  day,  and  such  throngs 
crowded  the  old  town  of  Zagreb  that  the 
installation  of  Jelacic,  as  ban,  had  to  be  per- 
formed in  the  public  square,  no  building  be- 
ing large  enough  to  hold  them.  That  the 
Hungarian  Government  protested  against  the 
installation  of  the  "  usurper  ban  "  only  served 
to  heighten  the  effect  of  the  occasion.     That 


78  THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

which,  however,  worried  the  Kossuthists  and 
Frankfortists  more  than  anything  else  was  the 
presence  in  Zagreb,  as  invited  guests,  of  Bo- 
hemians, Slovaks,  Servians,  and  Slovenes. 
H urban,  the  spokesman  of  the  Slovaks,  sent  a 
thrill  of  indignation  through  his  hearers  when 
he  declared  that  the  lot  of  the  Christians  in 
Turkey  was  far  more  bearable  than  the  con- 
dition of  Slovaks  in  Hungary.  Opening  the 
diet,  Ban  Jelacic  made  this  singular  utterance  : 

"  If  the  Magyars  are  anxious  to  play  the  role 
of  oppressors  toward  us  and  our  kinsmen  in 
Hungary,  let  them  learn  that  we  still  remem- 
ber the  saying  of  that  valiant  Ban,  Erd6dy, 
'  Regnum  regno  non  prescribit  leges' — 'A  king- 
dom shall  not  prescribe  laws  to  a  kingdom.' 
With  sword  in  hand  we  shall  prove  to  them 
that  the  times  are  past  when  one  nation  may 
presume  to  rule  over  another." 

All  efforts  to  reconcile  the  many  conflicting 
interests  seemed  unavailing.  The  Hungarian 
Diet,  which  held  its  first  session  on  July  5th, 
only  made  the  gap  wider  and  deeper  by  its 
haughty  attitude  toward  non-Magyar  nation- 
alities. The  mobilization  of  an  army  of  two 
hundred  thousand  men  was  a  challenge  to  all 
malcontents,  the  signification  of  which  could 
not  be  doubted. 


PAST  AND  PRESENT  79 

The  first  to  take  up  arms  in  defence  of  their 
rights,  real  or  imaginary,  were  the  Servians. 
"  Vojvodina,"  with  all  that  it  implied,  was  an 
idea  that  every  Magyar  abhorred  deeply,  and 
the  Hungarian  Government  inflicted  swift  and 
terrible  punishment  on  all  those  who  either 
aided  or  abetted  the  plan  of  the  "  Land  of 
the  Servians."  Countless  numbers  of  Servian 
patriots  perished  on  the  gallows,  and  if  the 
Magyars  complained  of  the  Servians  that 
they  played  the  role  of  La  Vendee,  though 
the  parallel  is  utterly  inapplicable,  the  answer 
could  be  made  that  even  La  Vendee  had  its 
glories  and  honors.  So  brutal  had  been  the 
treatment  of  the  Servians  who  were  unarmed, 
and  so  precarious  the  position  of  the  brave 
fellows  who  had  taken  the  field,  that  Patriarch 
Rajacic  sent  one  frantic  appeal  after  another 
for  help  to  Ban  Jelacic.  In  the  name  of  a 
common  ancestry,  and  in  the  name  of  the  just 
cause  that  his  followers  were  strugodinor-  for, 
he  entreated  the  Croatian  not  to  forsake  his 
brothers  in  their  supreme  hour  of  trial. 

At  last  the  die  was  cast.  Jelacic  set  his 
whole  army  in  motion,  and  with  the  watch- 
word, "  Stobog  dade  i  sreca  junacka,"  "  What- 
ever God  may  give  and  a  soldier's  luck,"  he 
crossed  the  swiftly  flowing  and  turbulent  waters 


80         THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

of  the  Drave  in  three  columns  on  September 
nth.  What  the  ban  achieved,  with  the  limited 
resources  at  his  command, — most  of  the  sea- 
soned men  from  the  Military  Frontier  being 
absent  from  home  and  fighting  under  Radecky 
in  Italy, — was  really  remarkable. 

Owing  to  the  ban's  prompt  action,  affairs  in 
Hungary  at  once  took  on  a  new  turn  :  the 
sorely  pressed  Servians  were  relieved,  atten- 
tion was  diverted  from  the  Rumuns,  for  the 
time  being  at  least,  and  the  Slovaks  felt  reas- 
sured. Most  cruel  measures  were  adopted  to 
"  pacify  "  the  last-named  race.  Their  leaders 
were  imprisoned  and  tortured,  and  more  than 
one,  to  recall  the  names  of  Sulek  and  Holuby, 
perished  on  the  gallows.  Among  those  Slo- 
vaks who  suffered  long  imprisonment  occur  to 
us  the  names  of  Rotarides,  Modrafi,  and  Borik. 
Hurban,  btiir,  and  Hodza  were  under  constant 
police  surveillance,  and  many  were  their  thrill- 
ing escapes.  Even  worse  persecutions  came 
when  the  diet  ordered  a  partial  mobilization 
of  the  home  guards  against  the  Servians  and 
Croatians.  Slovak  communities,  following  the 
example  of  Tisovec,  refused  to  post  the  draft, 
on  the  ground  that  it  lacked  the  customary 
sanction  of  the  King.  To  reduce  the  refrac- 
tory  highlanders  to   subjection,  gibbets  were 


PAST  AND  PRESENT  81 

erected  everywhere,  and  it  is  asserted  that 
there  was  not  a  village  alonof  the  Vah  that  was 
not  provided  with  a  rough  gibbet.  Strung 
up  to  them,  or  to  the  limbs  of  willow  trees, 
were  the  mouldering  bodies  of  rebels.  Scoff- 
ingly  the  gibbets  were  named  "  Slovak  trees 
of  liberty."  Later,  when  the  insurgents  en- 
tered the  country  from  the  north,  they  demol- 
ished, as  they  marched,  the  "  Kossuth  gallows," 
as  these  subsequently  came  to  be  known. 

Hostile  critics  require  us  to  believe  that  the 
great  ban,  in  striking  at  Hungary,  had  other 
objects  than  to  punish  the  alleged  oppressors 
of  his  people,  and  higher  ambitions  than  the 
salvation  of  Austria.  That  he  stood  sponsor 
for  liberty  and  emancipation,  they  say,  was 
only  a  bid  for  popular  acclaim.  Did  he  not 
join  forces  with  the  reactionaries  in  Vienna 
when  the  revolution  was  well  under  way  ?  In 
a  sense  this  was  true  ;  but  why,  it  may  be  asked, 
did  these  self  same  accusers  invoke  the  military 
aid  of  reactionary  Vienna  to  suppress  the  agi- 
tation for  reforms  that  made  itself  manifest 
in  Slovak  and  Servian  territory  ?  Assuredly 
what  was  wrong  in  one  instance  should  not  be 
claimed  to  be  right  in  the  other.  No  mean 
share  of  the  responsibility  for  the  ban's  mili- 
tary undertaking  rested  with  Ljudevit  Gaj,  the 


82  THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

editor  of  the  Narodnc  Novine  Horvatsko  Slavon- 
sko  Dalmatinske.  The  originator  and  chief 
exponent  of  Illyrism  or  fraternization  of  Servo- 
Croatians,  a  staunch  adherent  of  Kollar, 
Ljudevit  Gaj  was  Jelacic's  right-hand  man, 
clearing  the  way  with  his  resolute  pen  for  the 
ban's  larger  projects. 

It  is  not  the  purpose  of  this  chapter  to  re- 
count, step  by  step,  the  many  incidents  that 
preceded  the  rupture  between  Austria  and 
Hungary — the  massacre  of  General  Lambert 
in  Pest,  the  execution  of  War  Minister  Latour 
by  a  street  mob  in  the  Hapsburg  capital,  the 
flight  of  Ferdinand  V.  from  Vienna,  and  later 
his  abdication  in  favor  of  Francis  Joseph  I., 
the  stormy  sessions  of  the  young  parliament, 
the  clash  between  the  Teuton  and  the  Slav 
for  the  mastery  of  Austria,  the  Frankfort  Parlia- 
ment, and  the  Prague  Congress  ranging  their 
respective  forces  for  the  series  of  battles  yet 
to  come ;  nor  of  the  events  that  followed  it, 
from  the  initial  successes  of  the  Magyars  to 
the  irretrievable  ruin  at  Vildgos  ;  all  these  are 
matters  which  the  reader  will  find  treated  in 
full  elsewhere. 

Soon  after  Jelacic  let  loose  his  Croatians, 
the  Slovaks,  or  rather  those  of  them,  largely 
Protestants,  who  could  intelligently  grasp  the 


PAST  AND  PRESENT  83 

situation,  resorted  to  arms.  For  some  time 
the  Slovaks  vacillated,  being  undecided  where 
to  look  for  sympathy  and  help.  Should  they 
form  an  alliance  with  Vienna,  which  was  Ger- 
man, or  would  their  particular  interests  be  best 
subserved  by  remaining  loyal,  notwithstanding 
an  open  rebuff  by  Pest,  to  the  Hungarians? 
A  hard  choice  it  was,  with  Scylla  on  one  side 
and  Charybdis  on  the  other.  At  the  Slavic 
Congress  on  June  3,  1848,  Ludevit  Stur  is 
quoted  as  having  declared  :  "  You  say  it  is  to 
our  advantage  to  preserve  the  Austrian  mon- 
archy. Our  paramount  object  is  self-preserva- 
tion. First  let  us  help  ourselves,  then  assist 
others.  Austria  has  managed  to  live  until 
now — and  we  have  rotted.  What  would  the 
world  say  were  we  to  put  on  record  that  our 
only  aim  was  to  save  Austria  ? "  Nevertheless, 
and  despite  Stiir's  bitter  invective,  we  find  the 
Slovaks  casting  in  their  lot  with  the  dynasty. 

A  story  is  told  of  a  French  peasant  who 
came  down  from  the  mountains  to  buy  salt, 
and  in  this  way  was  surprised  to  learn  that  the 
French  Revolution  had  begun.  Upper  Hun- 
gary is  traversed  by  a  succession  of  steep 
mountains  and  rocky  defiles,  and  it  will  readily 
be  believed  that  many  of  the  mountaineers, 
cut  off  as  they  were  from  the  outside  world 


84         THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

and  destitute  of  reading  matter,  like  the 
French  peasant,  hardly  comprehended  what 
all  the  stir  was  about.  To  these  remote 
dwellers  Kossuth's  name,  which  was  then  on 
everybody's  lips,  must  have  come  like  some 
tale  of  wonder.  Proverbially  docile  ;  utterly 
devoid,  it  was  believed,  of  the  warlike  spirit 
that  has  made  the  Croatians  feared  and  re- 
spected by  their  enemies  ;  with  national  pride 
crushed  out  of  them  ;  and  weighted  down  by 
centuries  of  oppression  and  neglect,  it  was 
thought  by  all  that  the  Slovaks  were  incapa- 
ble of  organizing  armed  resistance.  But  the 
unexpected  happened,  and  the  despised  high- 
landers,  following  the  example  of  the  Servians 
and  Croatians,  took  up  arms  against  Magyar 
tyranny. 

Behind  the  movement  stood,  nominally,  the 
"  Slovenska  Narodna  Rada"  (Slovak  National 
Council).  In  reality,  however,  the  entire  work 
and  responsibility  lay  on  the  willing  shoulders 
of  Stur,  Hurban,  and  Hodza.  Jaroslav  Borik, 
who  served  in  the  political  section  of  the  Rada, 
had  the  misfortune  of  falling  into  the  hands 
of  the  authorities,  and  he  perished  miserably. 
To  Zach,  Bludek,  and  Janecek  was  confided 
the  care  of  the  military  preparation  of  the 
Rada. 


</^W    y/fl&yffu*      J%<?)% 


a. 


PAST  AND  PRESENT  85 

The  first  expedition  entered  Slovakland  on 
September  17th,  from  the  north,  under  the 
leadership  of  Zach,  Bludek,  and  Janecek.  As 
the  natives  remained  curiously  indifferent,  the 
volunteers  had  to  feel  their  way  slowly  and 
cautiously.  Moreover,  a  lack  of  military  train- 
ing, and,  above  all,  poor  equipment  must  have 
made  it  clear  to  Hodza  and  H urban  that  the 
expedition  could  not  achieve  signal  results. 
To  add  to  their  woes,  the  volunteers  while 
engaging  their  energetic  opponents,  found  it 
advisable  in  the  early  stages  of  the  uprising 
to  keep  a  sharp  lookout  on  the  imperial  troops, 
in  conjunction  with  whom  they  were  supposed 
to  co-operate  ;  for  it  often  meant  a  punishment 
just  as  hard  and  swift  to  be  captured  by  the 
imperialists  as  to  fall  into  the  hands  of  the 
Magyars.  At  no  time  did  more  than  eight 
thousand  volunteers  respond  to  Stiir's  call. 
After  some  minor  successes,  notably  that  of 
Brezova,  where  they  dispersed  the  Magyar 
guards  on  September  2 2d,  the  volunteers  were 
forced  to  disband.  Nothing  daunted  by  the 
first  failure,  in  which  the  insincerity  of  Vienna 
played  a  prominent  part,  Hodza  in  October 
planned  another  invasion  of  Slovakland.  In 
the  month  of  November  Bludek  obtained  per- 
mission from  the  Austrian  Minister  of  War  to 


86  THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

recruit  Slovak  volunteers.  Bludek  really  did 
succeed  in  raising  seventeen  companies  of 
them.  In  Silesia  Bludek's  contingent  was 
augmented  by  four  companies  of  imperials 
and  a  detachment  of  horsemen,  and  this  ex- 
pedition, commanded  by  Colonel  Frischeisen, 
forced  the  passage,  on  December  4th,  of  the 
northern  Hungarian  frontier  at  Jablunovsky 
Pass.  Near  Budatin,  on  December  nth, 
Lewartowski  defeated  the  Hungarians,  but  he 
was  finally  compelled  to  retire  to  Silesia  before 
an  overwhelming  command.  Afterwards,  hav- 
ing joined  General  Gotz's  imperial  army,  the 
volunteers  once  more  returned  to  Hungary, 
and,  retaking  Budatin,  operated  in  the  northern 
counties.  Early  in  1849  Hodza  and  Janecek's 
men  overran  the  region  along  the  lower  Vah, 
demolishing  Kossuth's  gibbets  wherever  they 
went.  After  the  battle  of  Kaplna  the  insurgent 
bands  were  disarmed,  thus  bringing  the  Slovak 
uprising  to  a  somewhat  unsuccessful  close. 

What  followed  after  the  downfall  of  the 
Hungarian  revolution  before  the  combined 
armies  of  Austria  and  Russia  is  too  well  known 
to  be  recapitulated  here  in  detail.  Once  more 
the  black  pall  of  absolutism  settled  over  the 
dominions  of  the  triumphant  Hapsburg,  sti- 
lling every  expression  of  liberal  and  national 


PAST  AND  PRESENT  87 

thought,  not  only  in  Hungary  but  in  Bohemia 
and  the  other  states  as  well.  Over  night  Min- 
ister Bach  filled  Hungary  with  his  officials, 
to  administer  affairs  there  "  impartially  but 
sternly."  No  one  must  now  complain  of  fa- 
voritism. Magyar  and  Slovak  received  equal 
treatment  from  Bach  and  his  creatures — both 
races  bein^  made  to  feel  that  a  foreign  master 
ruled  over  them.  True,  under  Bach's  regime 
the  use  of  Slovak  in  schools  and  local  admin- 
istration became  much  more  general  than  had 
been  the  case  under  the  Magyar  rule.  Even 
higher  schools  here  and  there  were  permitted 
to  teach  Bohemian-Slovak.  Political  life,  how- 
ever, was  wholly  denied  to  every  Hungarian 
citizen.  Bach,  the  all-powerful,  was  charged 
to  watch  closely  and  to  crush  promptly  every 
political  movement  of  the  Austrian  nations, 
and  contemporaries  all  agree  that  his  gen- 
darmes, of  whom  he  had  an  abundance,  did 
much  to  please  their  exacting  master.  What 
bitter  thoughts  must  have  racked  the  brain  of 
that  impetuous  rebel  H urban,  when  he  ob- 
served Bach's  gendarmes  tracking  his  foot- 
steps !  What  must  have  been  his  estimate 
of  Austrian  gratitude  ! 

Mirabeau  has  said  that  "  privileges  die,  but 
the  people   is   eternal."     And  so  it  was  with 


88  THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

Bach's  system.  In  less  than  a  dozen  years 
his  government  by  the  police  crumbled  down 
as  a  direct  result  of  the  Austrian  defeat  at  Sol-- 
ferino.  In  the  fall  of  1859  Bach  was  requested 
by  his  sovereign  to  "  resign." 

With  the  return  of  constitutionalism  to 
Hungary,  in  1861,  there  was  every  reason  to 
believe  that  the  Magyars  would,  in  turn,  be- 
come reconciled  to  the  Slovaks,  conceding 
them,  at  least,  a  part  of  the  rights  demanded 
in  the  manifesto  of  May,  1848.  But  it  is  a 
curious  feature  of  modern  Hungarian  history, 
and  one  that  has  time  and  again  found  fresh 
exemplification,  that  every  concession  made  to 
the  Magyars  has,  in  a  corresponding  measure, 
worked  injury  to  the  non-Magyars.  Not  that 
the  welfare  and  interests  of  the  Hungarian 
peoples  are  divergent  or  irreconcilable  ;  but 
because  the  favorite  policy  of  forcible  Mag- 
yarization  is  fundamentally  wrong. 

So  it  proved  to  be  in  this  instance.  When 
the  Hungarian  Diet  opened,  following  upon 
the  restoration,  non-Magyars  became  anx- 
ious. What  would  the  diet  do  for  them, 
if  anything?  The  sovereign  had  made  peace 
with  the  dominant  people  ;  would  these  evince 
the  same  spirit  of  magnanimity  toward  their 
less  favored  fellow-citizens  ? 


PAST  AND  PRESENT  89 

No  welcome  message  was  forthcoming  from 
Pest,  and  the  Slovaks,  impatient  of  delay, 
agreed  to  take  matters  into  their  own  hands. 
On  June  6,  1861,  the  leading  men  of  the 
nation  assembled  in  Martin,  and  there,  amid 
genuine  enthusiasm,  unanimously  adopted  a 
petition  of  rights,  called  by  Stephen  Daxner, 
who  drafted  it,  a  "  Memorandum." 

What  judgment  a  thoughtful  student  of 
Hungarian  politics  will  eventually  pass  on 
the  soundness  of  the  doctrines  set  forth  in  the 
memorandum,  is  of  course  uncertain.  The 
great  majority  of  Slovaks  of  our  generation 
indorsed  it  in  full,  insisting  that  it  represented 
the  minimal  demands  of  the  nation.  As  com- 
pared with  the  manifesto  of  1848,  the  memo- 
randum impresses  the  reader  as  being  far  more 
dignified  in  tone  and  temperate  in  claims. 
Throughout  the  memorandum  one  observes  a 
spirit  of  conciliation,  which  feature  was  almost 
wholly  absent  in  the  manifesto.  Having 
made  an  appeal  for  harmony  and  thorough  un- 
derstanding on  the  ground  of  community  of 
interest,  material  and  intellectual,  the  memo- 
randum urged  a  complete  social  equality,  easy 
of  attainment  when  it  was  once  conceded  that 
Slovaks  were  a  separate  and  distinct  nation, 
occupying  a  territory  the  boundaries  of  which, 


90  THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

for  administrative  purposes,  could  be  agreed 
upon  later.  In  this  territory,  or  "okoli,"  the 
Slovak  language  should  be  paramount,  though 
not  exclusive,  in  churches,  schools,  and  local 
government. 

A  deputation  repaired  in  due  time  to  Pest 
to  present  the  document  to  the  diet.  Baron 
Revay,  Szentivanyi,  and  Justh,  who  were  will- 
ing at  first  to  put  themselves  at  the  head  of  the 
petitioners,  backed  out  at  the  last  moment, 
having  learned  in  advance  that  the  diet  would 
not  receive  them.  And  this  is  what  actu- 
ally happened.  Instead  of  probing  into  the 
justice  of  the  grievances  and  answering  the 
petitioners  frankly,  the  diet  sought  to  create  a 
public  feeling  adverse  to  the  Slovak  memoran- 
dum. Orders  were  sent  out  from  Pest  to  the 
highland  counties  to  solicit  protests  against  it. 
Renegades  were,  of  course,  found  in  plenty, 
especially  among  the  zeman  class,  who  signed 
a  vigorous  counter  petition.  And  this  latter 
paper  was  afterwards  read  in  the  diet  and 
applauded  by  the  legislators  as  the  true  voice 
of  all  loyal  Slovaks. 

Failing  at  home,  the  memorandists  later  on 
decided  to  appeal  direct  to  the  throne.  Ste- 
phen Moyses,  the  distinguished  Catholic  bishop, 
went  with  a  delegation  to  Vienna.      The   Em- 


PAST  AND  PRESENT  91 

peror-King  is  said  to  have  received  his  faithful 
Slovaks  graciously.  But,  like  the  appeal  to 
Pest,  this  pilgrimage  to  Vienna  was  also  barren 
of  material  results. 

Realizing  at  last  the  futility  of  seeking  as- 
sistance from  without,  the  leaders  now  turned 
their  attention  to  self-help.  A  happy  begin- 
ning was  made  in  the  organization  of  higher 
schools,  of  which  the  nation  was  then  utterly 
destitute.  The  first  to  give  themselves  to 
this  promising  work  were  the  Protestants,  who 
founded  two  sectarian  gymnasia,  a  higher  at 
Velka  Reviica  in  1862  and  a  lower  at  Martin. 
To  Stephen  Daxner,  the  father  of  the  "  Memo- 
randum," belongs  the  chief  credit  for  the  es- 
tablishment of  the  first-named  school.  Charles 
Kuzmany  did  much  toward  the  starting  and 
successful  operation  of  the  other.  Soon  after, 
the  Catholics  opened  a  gymnasium  at  Klastor. 
Following  close  upon  these  auspicious  events 
the  "Zivena,"  a  women's  society,  was  organ- 
ized. In  1870,  Andrew  Radlinsky,  with  the 
co-operation  of  the  Catholic  clergy,  laid  the 
foundation  to  the  "  Society  of  St.  Vojtech." 
The  same  year  (1870),  witnessed  the  incorpo- 
ration at  Martin  of  a  publishing  concern  on 
shares,  John  Francisci  having  removed  his 
political   newspaper,  the  Vcdomosti,  published 


92  THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

heretofore  in  Pest,  to  the  new  Slovak  capital 
and  renaming  the  Vedomosti  to  Ndrodnie 
Noviny.  But  by  far  the  most  eventful  hap- 
pening of  this  memorable  period  of  national 
development  was  the  birth  in  1862  of  the 
"Slovenska  Matica"  — the  "Slovak  fund." 
The  object  of  the  Matica,  as  expressed  in  the 
by-laws  which  were  officially  approved  in  Au- 
gust, 1862,  was  stated  to  be  "to  publish  and 
circulate  Slovak  books  and  works  of  art,  to 
give  lectures  on  educational  subjects,  to  collect 
funds  for  the  purpose  of  aiding  literature,  arts, 
sciences,  natural  history,  and  researches  in  an- 
tiquities, and  also  to  subsidize  native  scholars 
and  artists,  and  to  offer  prizes  and  rewards  for 
works  on  science  and  arts."  When  the  open- 
ing meeting  was  held  at  Martin,  the  Matica 
boasted  of  984  members,  the  roll  practically  in- 
cluding every  Slovak  of  note  regardless  of 
creed.  On  Bishop  Moyses  was  conferred  the 
honor  of  presidency ;  Charles  Kuzmany,  a 
Protestant  bishop,  was  elected  first  vice-pres- 
ident, and  John  Orszagh,  another  high  church 
dignitary,  second  vice-president;  Paul  Mud- 
ron  and  Michael  Chrastek  were  elected  secre- 
taries ;  Abbot  Thomas  Cerven,  treasurer. 
About  90,000  florins  had  been  raised  by  vol- 
untary subscription,  the  Emperor-King  himself 


PAST  AND  PRESENT  93 

contributing  1000  florins.  Gratifying  in  the 
extreme  was  the  missionary  work  of  the  Ma- 
tica.  Books  were  printed  that  otherwise  could 
not  be  published  because  of  the  poverty  of  the 
authors  or  the  limited  number  of  subscribers. 
Of  the  Letopis,  which  is  a  kind  of  chronicle  of 
national  events,  eleven  volumes  were  issued 
by  this  educational  society  between  1864-74. 
Chiefly  due  also  to  the  impetus  of  the  Matica 
some  150  reading  clubs  and  circulating  libra- 
ries came  into  being.  The  lower  clergy  of 
both  denominations,  encouraged  by  their  bish- 
ops, who  stood  at  the  helm,  vied  with  each 
other  in  the  patriotic  enterprise. 

The  crushing  defeat  that  Austrian  arms  sus- 
tained at  Sadova  in  1866  was  of  course  bound 
to  affect,  in  one  way  or  another,  not  only  the 
policy  of  the  Hapsburgs  toward  their  old-time 
partner  and  late  antagonist,  Germany,  but  the 
mutual  relations  of  the  several  Austrian  peo- 
ples as  well. 

In  sullen  opposition  to  the  King  since  1848, 
the  Magyars,  ever  on  the  alert,  decided  to 
strike  for  concessions  when  Austria,  weakened 
by  the  war,  was  least  able  to  resist  them. 
Dualism,  the  division  of  Austria  in  two  parts, 
Austrian  and  Hungarian,  was  the  direct  out- 
come of  the  pressure  brought  to  bear  by  the 


94  THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

Magyars.  Presently  we  shall  see  how  the 
Slovak  "hordes"  profited  by  Hungarian  au- 
tonomy in  1867. 

Once  more,  but  for  the  last  time,  the  expec- 
tations of  the  patriots  rose.  Owing  to  Deak's 
initiative  the  diet  passed,  in  1868,  the  so-called 
"  Law  of  Nationalities."  In  substance  the 
"  Law  of  Nationalities"  emphasized  the  privi- 
leged position  of  the  Magyar,  but  it  recognized, 
in  principle,  the  limited  use  of  other  tongues 
besides  the  dominant  one,  in  districts  where  the 
non-Magyar  idioms  predominated.  Article  44, 
paragraph  26,  of  the  law  provided  that  "every 
inhabitant  of  the  land,  irrespective  of  nation- 
ality, and  every  commune,  religious  denomina- 
tion and  parish  had  the  right  to  establish  at 
his  or  its  own  proper  cost  and  expense  elemen- 
tary, middle  and  higher  schools  and  to  found 
societies  having  for  their  aim  the  promotion 
of  philology,  arts,  sciences,  agriculture,  com- 
merce and  industry  under  proper  state  super- 
vision, to  formulate  its  own  by-laws,  if  not 
inconsistent  with  the  laws  of  the  land,  etc.,  the 
language  to  be  used  in  managing  the  affairs  of 
such  private  associations  being  determined  by 
the  founders  thereof."  Under  the  law  litigants 
and  taxpayers  were  to  be  served  in  their 
mother  tongue.      Thus  a  litigant,  be  he  plain- 


PAST  AND  PRESENT  95 

tiff  or  defendant,  could  insist  on  being"  heard 
in  the  language  prevalent  in  his  commune. 
Likewise  the  judge  was  obliged  to  conduct  the 
trial,  examine  witnesses  and  enter  the  court 
minutes  in  the  language  of  the  parties  to  the 
action. 

But  alas  !  wofully  has  the  "  Law  of  Nation- 
alities "  failed  of  its  purpose.  For  a  year  or  two 
it  seemed  to  respond  to  the  ideas  of  its  noble- 
minded  framer.  Times  changed  rapidly,  how- 
ever, and  the  Magyar,  confident  of  his  growing 
power,  again  returned  to  his  favorite  policy  of 
repression,  which  he  had  been  forced  to  aban- 
don, at  least  in  part,  by  the  events  of  1848. 
Probably  the  chief  reason  why  the  much- 
vaunted  "  Law  of  Nationalities  "  became  an 
ornamental  dead  letter  on  the  Hungarian 
statute-book  was  that,  within  a  short  time  after 
its  enactment,  the  country  was  stirred  to  its 
very  depths  by  the  "  Magyar  state  idea." 

What  is  the  "  Magyar  state  idea  ?  "  A  high 
government  official,  at  one  time  a  deputy, 
Adalbert  Grunwald  is  looked  upon  as  the 
elaborator  of  this  doctrine,  though  not  its 
originator,  for  the  thought  had  been  born  in 
the  reign  of  Joseph  II.  In  1878,  Grunwald 
published  a  work,  which  he  named  Felvid^kiek 
(Highlanders),  the  guiding   idea  of  which  is 


96         THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

that  Hungary  must  be  changed  to  a  homo- 
geneous country,  if  it  is  to  have  a  safe  future. 
To  accomplish  this  end  it  was  necessary  to 
strengthen  the  Magyar  element  and  make  it 
paramount  in  the  land.  To  rule  was  the  des- 
tiny of  the  Magyars ;  to  follow  must  be  the 
mission  of  the  rest.  Danger  to  the  state 
lurked  in  the  national  awakening  of  the  Slo- 
vaks,  Servians,  and  others,  and  this  awakening 
should  be  promptly  suppressed.  A  native  of 
Hungary  could  not  be  a  patriot  unless  he  in- 
dorsed in  full  the  Magyar  state  idea.  While 
it  might  be  permissible,  reasoned  Griinwald, 
for  a  peasant  or  laborer  to  converse,  for  ex- 
ample, in  Slovak,  a  cultured  person,  reared 
on  Hungarian  soil,  should  under  no  circum- 
stances speak,  think,  or  feel,  except  as  a 
Magyar.  A  Slovak  of  education  who  re- 
mained true  to  his  ancestry  was  deficient  in 
patriotism  and  a  traitor  to  his  country.  To 
Magyarize  Slovakland  was  the  government's 
manifest  duty,  and  it  should  be  effected  by 
forcible  means,  if  necessary.  The  Slovaks 
were  slaves  and  nature  intended  them  for 
drudges.  Although  faithful  to  their  country 
and  brave  in  war  they  seemed  to  have  been 
born  to  eternal  bondage,  because  the  terms 
"Slovak"    and    "lord"    were    wholly    incom- 


PAST  AND  PRESENT  97 

patible.  There  was  no  Slovak  nation,  only  a 
horde  speaking  that  language.  The  so-called 
Slovak  party  consisted  of  a  few  rebels,  who 
should  be  done  away  with  ;  the  peasants  could 
then  be  subdued  with  ease.  To  the  Magyars 
was  allotted  the  task  of  exterminatine  the 
Slavs  living  on  Hungarian  soil.  A  compromise 
with  the  Slovaks  was  impossible.  There  was 
only  one  expedient  left — to  wipe  them  out. 
If  the  Magyars  wished  to  live,  they  must  in- 
crease their  numbers  by  assimilating  the  non- 
Magyar  people. 

Very  little  urging  was  required  to  put 
Grunwald's  captivating  theories  into  practice. 
Who  dared  to  interfere  with  the  ambitious 
designs  of  the  Magyars,  absolute  masters  in 
the  country  since  the  Act  of  Settlement  ?  Un- 
merciful and  quick  were  the  blows  that  were 
now  to  be  dealt  to  the  children  of  Svatopluk. 

In  the  month  of  August,  1874,  the  govern- 
ment ordered  the  closing  of  the  Revue  school ; 
in  January,  1875,  followed  the  closing  of  the 
Martin  and  Klastor  gymnasia.  There  yet  re- 
mained the  Matica.  But  the  accusing  finger 
had  been  raised  against  that  fine  institution, 
and  to  a  few  initiated  ones  it  was  known  be- 
forehand that  a  condemnatory  verdict  had 
been  pronounced  against  it.     Futile  was  the 


98    THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

pleading    in    Pest   of    William    Pauliny,    then 
vice-president   of  the  Matica,  and   of  Francis 
Sasinek,  its  secretary.     Tisza  had  made  up  his 
mind.      To    all    the    eloquent    arguments    of 
Pauliny  and  Sasinek  his  only  reply  was  that 
not  Slovaks  but  panslavs  were  persecuted,  and 
that  all  the  three  institutions  had  been  proved 
to  be  hotbeds  of  panslavism.     At  last  Matica's 
doom  was  announced  officially.    Three  months 
after  the  suppression  of  the  Martin  and  Klas- 
tor   schools,   the    charter    of   the   Matica  was 
annulled,  the  library  and  the  rich  collections 
in  the  museum    sealed,  and   the  fund,  which 
had  been  raised  entirely  by  voluntary  subscrip- 
tion, confiscated  by  the  government.     When 
Polit,  a  Servian  deputy,  called  the  ministry  to 
account    for  this  high-handed   and  barbarous 
proceeding,    insisting    that    the   funds    confis- 
cated should  be    returned,  as   the  by-laws  of 
the  Matica  provided,  to  the  donors  thereof,  to 
wit,   to  the  Slovak  nation,  Premier  Koloman 
Tisza  made  the  famous  utterance  on  the  floor 
of  the   Hungarian   Parliament,  December   15, 
1 875,  "There  is  no  Slovak  nation." 

Later  an  effort  was  made  to  reopen  a 
gymnasium  at  Martin.  Would  the  Ministry 
of  Education  give  the  necessary  consent? 
Trefort  thought  it  would.     The  law  of   1868 


1- 

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PAST  AND  PRESENT  99 

was  apparently  favorable  to  the  scheme,  for  it 
provided  that  non-Magyar  peoples  might  estab- 
lish sectarian  middle  schools  in  their  respective 
environs.  V.  Pauliny-Toth,  hoping  for  the 
best,  announced  that  voluntary  subscriptions 
would  be  received  toward  the  school  fund. 
In  a  month  one  hundred  thousand  florins 
were  raised.  At  this  juncture  Minister  Trefort 
made  the  crushing  announcement  that  the 
gymnasium  could  not  be  allowed — and  this 
in  direct  violation  of  the  law  of  1868.  How, 
then,  the  reader  will  ask,  do  journalists,  school 
teachers,  writers,  and  other  professionals  per- 
fect themselves  in  the  higher  knowledge  of 
the  tongue  ?  The  answer  is  :  by  diligent  pri- 
vate study.  The  few  hundred  communal 
schools  hardly  teach  its  elements. 

The  Slovaks  appropriately  describe  the  years 
succeeding  1875  as  "  dark  days  of  persecution." 
Persecution  it  is  of  the  most  atrocious  and 
merciless  kind  —  the  kind  of  which  John  Hay 
complained  to  the  Rumanian  Government  in 
his  famous  note  issued  on  August  11,  1902. 
Speaking  of  the  cruel  ill-usage  of  the  Jews  in 
Rumania,  a  condition  strikingly  applicable  to 
the  Slovak  case,  the  great  secretary  then  said : 

"  Shut  out  from  nearly  every  avenue  of  self- 
support  which  is  opened  to  the  poor  of  other 


ioo        THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

lands,  and  ground  down  by  poverty  as  the 
natural  result  of  their  discriminatory  treatment, 
they  are  rendered  incapable  of  lifting  them- 
selves from  the  enforced  degradation  they  en- 
dure. Human  beings  so  circumstanced  have 
virtually  no  alternative  but  submissive  suffer- 
ing or  flight  to  some  land  less  unfavorable  to 
them." 

Longest  to  resist  the  encroachments  of 
Magyarization  were  the  church  organizations. 
Protestants  of  the  Augsburg  Confession,  ex- 
clusive of  Transylvania,  number  about  1,085,- 
000.  Of  this  total  Slovaks  claim  600,000, 
Germans  235,000,  and  Magyars  250,000.  For- 
merly the  whole  country  was  divided  in  four 
districts  or  bishoprics,  and  because  the  Cis-Da- 
nubian  district  had  85  %  Slovak  communicants, 
it  followed  that  Slovak  Lutherans  had  the 
control  of  at  least  one  bishopric.  This  consti- 
tuted quite  a  bulwark  of  strength  to  ministers 
and  teachers  in  their  patriotic  work,  in  schools, 
churches,  and  denominational  conventions. 
To  the  Magyar  party,  however,  the  arrange- 
ment was  objectionable,  and  accordingly  a  law 
was  formulated  in  1894  by  which  two  Slovak 
seniorates  were  detached  from  the  Cis-Danu- 
bian  and  attached  to  the  Thciss  district.  By 
this  geometry  the  Slovaks,  as  had  been  fore- 


PAST  AND  PRESENT  101 

seen,  lost  a  positive  majority  in  every  bishop- 
ric. Moreover,  the  government,  to  secure  a 
firmer  hold  on  the  good-will  of  ministers  of  the 
gospel,  stood  sponsor  to  the  passage  of  a  law  in 
1898  whereby  preachers  who  enjoy  an  annual 
income  less  than  1600  crowns  are  entitled  to  a 
subvention  from  the  state.  The  meaning  of 
this  will  be  best  understood  when  it  is  remem- 
bered that  the  tempting  law  affects  almost  every 
minister  in  Slovakland !  Those  suspected  of 
"sentiments  unfriendly  to  the  state"  —  note 
the  application  of  the  particular  provision — 
may  not  receive  subventions. 

An  event  of  more  than  passing  interest,  al- 
though without  apparent  results,  was  a  meeting, 
in  1895  in  Pest,  of  non-Magyar  nationalities, 
including  Slovaks. 


i 


LANGUAGE  AND  LITERATURE. 

N   the  preface  to  his  Literattire  in  Slovak- 
land,  written    in   1880,   Jaroslav  Vlcek,  a 
recognized  authority  on  the  subject,  says  : 

"  The    Bohemian-Slovak    nation    is  divided 
politically,   administratively,    ethnographically, 
and  linguistically  into  two  unequal  parts,  the 
development  of  which  has  been  totally  differ- 
ent both  in  manner  and  trend.     The  first  part 
embraces  Bohemia,  Moravia,  and  Silesia.    It  has 
a  glorious  past,  all  its  own,  which  reached  its 
culmination  during  the  Hussite  wars,  waged  to 
free  man's  conscience  and  secure  spiritual  free- 
dom from  the  thraldom  of  the  Middle  Ages. 
It  has  a  rich  blossoming  literature,  the  golden 
flow  of  which  is   traceable   long  prior  to  the 
sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries.      Lastly, 
because    of   its    rejuvenation,   that   should   be 
regarded  as  the   most   remarkable  occurrence 
in  the  history  of  mankind,  it  is  recognized  by 
all  unprejudiced  observers  as  a  separate  body 
politic,  occupying  a   respectable  place  in   the 
history  of  European  culture. 

"  The  second  and  smaller  part  of  the  nation, 
which  inhabits  northern  Hungary,  lost  its  polit- 
ical independence  after  the  battle  of  Pressburg 


102 


LANGUAGE  AND  LITERATURE      103 

(907),  hence  as  early  as  the  dawn  of  the  tenth 
century,  and  history  is  silent  in  regard  to 
it.  But  this  is  only  seemingly  so,  for  it  has 
never  ceased  to  contribute  its  quota  of  culture, 
of  letters,  of  military  force,  and  of  leaders  of 
thought  to  the  land  into  which  it  has  been 
merged.  Its  legions  battled  in  the  crusades, 
against  the  Turkish  hordes  which  repeat- 
edly invaded  the  fatherland,  and  rallied  under 
every  insurgent  banner  of  the  time,  but  all  this 
was  done  under  the  name  of  '  Hungary.' 
The  world  is  ignorant  of  its  existence,  and  its 
literature  is  barely  a  century  old. 

"  One  name  alone  shines  through  the  void 
of  Slovak  history  since  the  downfall  of  Great 
Moravia,  namely  that  of  Matthew  Csak  of 
Trencin,  '  the  Lord  of  Vah  and  Tatra,'  who 
tried  to  unite  Slovakland  with  Bohemia  in  the 
beginning  of  the  fourteenth  century.  Yet  even 
this  name  suddenly  vanished  like  the  flight  of 
a  meteor.  The  single  figures  of  Pongrac  of 
Liptov,  an  illustrious  Slovak  lord;  of  Matthew 
Korvin,  who  was  reared  in  the  atmosphere  of 
Slavic  thought  in  Bohemia,  and  conferred 
patents  framed  in  Bohemian  on  a  number  of 
towns  in  Upper  Hungary;  of  Vladislav  II., 
who  likewise  corresponded  in  that  language, 
opening  Hungarian  Diets  in  Bohemian,  and  of  a 
few  others  who  in  their  respective  times  were 
familiar  with  Slavonic  tongues;  all  else  has 
disappeared  behind  an  impenetrable  screen  of 
Latin  which  helped  to  obliterate  every  expres- 
sion of  thought  and  racial  characteristic  of  the 


104        THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

people,  from  the  time  of  St.  Stephen  to  the 
beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

"  And  just  as  all  traces  of  the  Slovaks  taking 
an  independent  action  in  the  events  of  the 
world's  history  are  lost  to  us,  so  the  fact  is  ob- 
vious, too,  that  the  native  language,  sheltered 
as  it  was  by  the  nature  of  the  country  and  cut 
off  from  intercourse  with  the  outside,  had 
failed  to  develop  and  to  keep  pace  with  its 
more  powerful  kin  in  Bohemia.  The  levelling 
influence  of  Latin  in  the  Middle  Ages  appears 
overwhelming  in  Slovakland.  Nowhere  is  ob- 
servable any  literary  movement,  not  even  signs 
of  any  home  culture  whatever — of  civilization 
that  had  not  been  transplanted  thither  from 
elsewhere.  The  Hussites  entered  the  country 
and  settled  there  in  the  middle  of  the  fif- 
teenth century  (1440).  Especially  they  over- 
ran Nitra,  Novohrad,  and  Zvolen  counties.  A 
portion  of  the  inhabitants  adopted  their  re- 
ligion, and  with  it  the  language  of  the  Kralic 
Bible,  for  liturgical  purposes.  Yet  the  people 
remained  unmoved.  A  second  stream  of  Bo- 
hemian exiles  followed  the  first,  and  after  the 
battle  at  the  White  Mountain  in  the  seventeenth 
century  Slovakland  welcomed  to  its  hearth 
John  Amos  Komensky  and  other  Bohemians 
of  renown  ;  Slovak  evangelical  preachers  re- 
ceived into  their  safe-keeping  writings  of  the  so- 
called  golden  era  of  Bohemian  literature,  books 
that  were  condemned  to  be  burned  at  home;  in- 
dividual Protestant  clergymen  went  to  Prague 
to  acquire  education  there  and  composed  theo- 


LANGUAGE  AND  LITERATURE      105 

logical  works,  translated  Bibles,  compiled  hym- 
nals, edited  prayers  and  sermons.  However, 
all  this  was  not  literature,  only  a  series  of  dog- 
matical, apologetical,  polemical,  and  theological 
writings  and  pamphlets,  designed  almost  ex- 
clusively for  the  use  of  evangelical  clergy  and 
influencing,  and  that  only  to  a  degree  almost 
imperceptible,  the  adherents  of  the  Protestant 
faith.  The  bulk  of  the  people  remained  in  its 
former  condition  of  intellectual  torpor,  unpro- 
gressive,  immovable. 

"  Meantime  Bohemia  lay  in  the  throes  of 
a  lethargic  sleep.  The  Bohemian  language, 
having  been  ruthlessly  suppressed  everywhere 
except  in  the  wretched  hovels  of  the  peasantry, 
had  been  deprived  of  its  right  and  power.  From 
1620  to  1820  Bohemia  virtually  did  not  exist. 
Property  rights  may  be  said  to  have  been  for- 
feited during  this  lengthy  period.     .     .     . 

"  It  was  the  impulse  of  religion  which  laid 
the  foundation  of  native  literature  in  Sloven- 
sko.  In  the  year  1718  a  zealous  Paulist 
monk,  Alexander  Macsaj,  began  to  publish 
his  harangues  in  a  subdialect  current  around 
Trnava.  His  evident  object  was  to  get  nearer 
to  the  comprehension  and  sympathy  of  the  com- 
mon people.  The  innovation  was  obviously 
meant  as  a  rebuff  to  the  Protestants  and  it 
served  to  pave  the  way  for  Bernolak.  A  modest 
opening  it  was ;  yet  it  made  receptive  the 
home  soil  for  literature  that  was  to  sprout 
up  later. 

"  The  close  of  the  eighteenth  century  was  at 


106        THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

hand.  The  reign  of  Maria  Theresa  and  of 
Joseph  II.,  while  freeing  the  human  mind  in  one 
direction,  endeavored  to  fetter  it  in  another  by 
forcible  Germanization.  The  French  Revolu- 
tion shattered  one  after  another  the  last  rem- 
nants of  mediaeval  cults,  fetters,  and  prejudices  ; 
here  and  there  were  seen,  illuminating  the  im- 
penetrable darkness,  flashes  of  Slavic  literature, 
emerging  into  life.  All  of  them  found  inspi- 
ration in  the  grand  idea  of  a  national  awaken- 
ing. In  Russia,  and  especially  in  Little  Russia, 
the  native  language  sought  to  liberate  itself 
from  the  deadening-  influence  of  the  Church 
Slavonic.  A  new  light  penetrated  into  Bo- 
hemia and  the  South  Slavic  countries. 

"  Slovakland  at  this  juncture  outstripped 
Bohemia,  and  this  finally  decided  the  fate  of 
its  literary  language.  The  Slovaks  nowhere 
hearing  a  word  of  Bohemian,  which  had  been 
stamped  out  by  the  hoofs  of  mounted  dra- 
goons '  and  placed  under  the  ban  by  anti-re- 
formers ;  and,  moreover,  as  Catholics,  not 
being  tied  to  it  by  tradition,  grasped  at  the 
living  tongue  of  their  own  people,  a  course  as 
logical  as  it  was  natural.  A  band  of  patriots 
with  Fandli,  Bajza,  and  Bernolak  at  their  head 
took  hold  of  the  language  that  had  been  som- 
nolent for  eight  hundred  years,  and  began  to 
mould  it  to  literary  uses.      Bernolak  issued  the 

1  During  the  Thirty- Vears  War,  missionaries  accompanied  by 
mounted  troops  visited  one  village  after  another,  burning  Bohemian 
books  and  Bibles.  Liechtenstein  s  dragoons  were  especially  notorious 
in  this  wanton  work. 


LANGUAGE  AND  LITERATURE      107 

first  Slovak  grammar  and  a  compendious  Slovak 
dictionary.  Benefactors  came  forward,  chief 
among  them  being  Prince  Primate  Alexander 
Rudnay,  who  generously  aided  the  literature 
which  was  being  ushered  into  life.  Poets  were 
born,  Holty  foremost  of  them,  who  sang  for  the 
first  time  familiar  native  songs  which,  despite 
their  strange  classic  form,  were  nevertheless 
Slovak.  H owever,  Bernolak's  dialect  made  slow 
headway  in  popularity,  partly  owing  to  the  op- 
position of  the  Protestants,  and  partly  because 
of  its  inherent  imperfections.  Bernolak,  who 
labored  in  the  neighborhood  of  Nitra  and 
Pressburg,  chose  for  his  literary  language,  in- 
stead of  pure  Slovak,  the  faulty  subdialect  of 
these  counties,  the  so-called  Bohemian-Slovak. 
Equally  defective  was  Bernolak's  orthography, 
being  purely  phonetic,  illogical,  and  lacking 
connection  with  the  other  Slavonic  languages 
— a  veritable  linguistic  jumble.  It  was  a  work 
faulty  not  alone  in  principle  but  in  construction 
as  well ;  still,  itwas  the  first  signal  effort  to  bridge 
the  differences  between  the  so-called  Biblical, 
then  dominant,  and  the  Slovak  language. 

"  The  nineteenth  century  was  opening. 
Once  more  vigorous  breezes  blew  from  west- 
ern Europe,  breezes  of  liberty,  and  the  Slovak 
people,  heretofore  immovable,  were  set  in 
motion  with  the  rest  of  the  big  Slavic  family. 
The  needs  of  the  people  multiplied,  and  all 
that  was  required  was  to  throw  a  spark  into 
the  smouldering  mass,  appealing  to  it  in  a 
voice  that  all  would  at  once  recognize  as  their 


io8        THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

own.  The  Catholic  and  Protestant  clergy, 
who  had  been  defying  one  another  all  along, 
the  first  displaying  marked  partiality  to  Latin 
and  "  Bernolacina,"  the  other  with  equal  per- 
tinacity upholding  the  Biblical  Bohemian,  con- 
sented to  listen  to  the  conciliatory  arguments 
of  Ludevit  Stiir,  a  great  reformer,  who,  having 
grasped  the  situation,  contrived  to  isolate  Ber- 
nolak's  dialect,  and  in  the  year  1844  with  nu- 
merous followers  (the  young  Protestant  party) 
came  forward  with  a  dialect  that  is  spoken  in 
eight  central  Slovak  counties,  and  which  in 
miniature  represents  all  Slavic  tongues,  not 
even  excepting  the  Old  Bulgarian,  being 
besides  melodious,  sonorous,  and  chaste.  The 
confusion  which  arose  through  the  adoption  of 
Stur's  tongue  and  the  retention  of  Bernolak's 
orthography,  added  to  that  of  numerous  syn- 
tactical and  other  errors  and  imperfections, 
were  gradually  removed  by  Hodza,  and  finally 
the  work  was  systematized  by  Professor  Martin 
Hattala,  who  gave  the  language  a  scientific 
and  Slavic  finish.  This  explains  all.  The  philo- 
logical convention  of  Pressburg  (1852),  that 
completed  the  reform  in  orthography,  was  the 
means  of  firmly  and  lastingly  uniting  both 
factions,  hostile  to  one  another  for  cen- 
turies, namely  the  Catholic  (lately  Berno- 
lak's) and  Protestant  (Stur's)  in  one  common 
tongue,  which  in  due  time  took  a  position 
among  other  Slavic  literatures  as  its  youngest 
sister. 

"  From  this  it  will  be  seen  that  Slovak  liter- 


LANGUAGE  AND  LITERATURE      109 

ature,   as  such,    is   the  product    of    the    nine- 
teenth century. 

"  But  while  it  is  admitted  that  the  Slovak 
dialect  was  called  forth  by  an  urgent  need, 
and  while  the  innovation  always  had  and  now 
has  a  wide  and  appreciative  public  in  both  liter- 
ary and  journalistic  fields,  yet  purely  scientific 
literature  can  never  thrive  in  Slovakland,  lack- 
ing as  it  does  the  requisite  sources  of  material 
support.     .     .     . 

"  The  ties  of  culture  that  unite  the  Bohe- 
mian-Slovak nation  are  strong  and  indissolu- 
ble, and,  notwithstanding  the  fact  that  the  two 
peoples  have  parted,  their  literatures  appear 
to  us  as  a  literary  unit,  forming  a  circle  within 
a  circle  and  supplementing  one  another  as 
surely  as  that  Slovakland  and  Bohemia  are 
one  linguistically,  nationally,  ethnographically, 
and  geologically. 

"Slovak  belles-lettres  may  therefore  be  di- 
vided into  two  periods  :  the  first  period  begin- 
ning from  Bernolak's  time  and  ending  with 
Stiir  ( 1 783-1844),  the  second  from  Stiir  to  the 
present  day  (1845-1880)." 

Exactly  what  position  should  be  assigned  to 
Slovak  in  the  family  of  Slavonic  languages  is 
a  question  on  which  philologists  are  not  agreed. 
Is  it  entitled  to  an  independent  place  along 
with  the  Russian,  Polish,  Bohemian,  Servo- 
Croatin,  and  others,  or  should  it  be  classed  as 
a  dialect  of  the  Bohemian,  to  which  latter  it 


no       THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

bears  a  striking  resemblance  in  sound,  gram- 
mar, and  intonation  ?  Certain  it  is  that  no  two 
Slavonians  understand  each  other  as  readily  as 
a  Bohemian  and  a  Slovak.  What  renders  an 
accurate  classification  difficult  is  the  fact  that, 
but  for  fragments  of  songs,  nothing  is  known  to 
exist  of  early  Slovak  literature.  If  there  were 
any,  the  evidences  of  them  are  now  lost,  or  lie 
hidden,  as  is  believed  by  some,  in  the  still 
unexplored  libraries  of  Hungarian  magnates 
having  estates  in  Slovakland.  The  "  father  of 
Slavic  philology,"  Joseph  Dobrovsky,  added 
the  weight  of  his  authority  in  favor  of  the 
linguistic  independence  of  Slovak.  So  did 
Safarik,  at  first,  in  a  German  work  published 
in  1826.  Later  on,  and  having  examined  the 
subject  more  thoroughly,  Safarik  changed  his 
mind.  He  thought  he  recognized  in  Slovak 
an  old  form  of  Bohemian.  According  to  his 
version  of  it,  the  rustics  in  Bohemia  and  Mo- 
ravia, like  all  country  people,  indulged  in  local 
mannerisms  of  speech,  yet  on  the  whole  devi- 
ating but  slightly  from  the  written  standard. 
This,  Safarik  claimed,  was  not  the  case  with 
the  Hungarian  Slovaks.  Living  in  a  rough 
and  mountainous  country,  far  from  the  refining 
influences  of  seats  of  learning,  and  without  any 
national   centre    to    unite    them,   they   drifted 


LANGUAGE  AND  LITERATURE      in 

more  and  more  from  the  accepted  forms  of 
speech.  It  is  on  this  hypothesis  alone  that  we 
can  account  for  the  bewildering-  multitude  of 
dialects  and  subdialects  that  were  evolved  in 
Slovakland  in  the  course  of  centuries.  Jagic, 
having  pointed  out  all  the  structural  and  lexi- 
cographical variations,  sums  up  by  saying  that 
"  science  is  justified  in  regarding  Slovak  and 
Bohemian  as  two  constituent  parts  forming 
a  unity  in  the  group  of  Slavic  languages." 
Florinskij  took  the  same  ground  as  Dobrovsky. 
In  a  treatise  on  the  subject  he  enumerated  no 
less  than  sixteen  instances  wherein  Slovak  is 
supposed  to  vary  from  its  Bohemian  sister. 
Already  the  geographical  situation  of  the  Slo- 
vaks toward  the  other  Slavs  seemed  to  justify, 
in  Florinskij's  judgment,  the  assumption  that 
their  idiom  is  a  distinct  one.  Slovak  shares  all 
the  peculiar  characteristics  of  the  languages 
which  it  borders — Bohemian  here,  Polish  there, 
Russian  and  Servian  where  it  mixes  with  those 
kindred  tongues.  Though  nearer  to  Bohe- 
hemian  than  to  any  other  Slavic  language, 
reasons  Florinskij,  it  nevertheless  must  be 
treated  under  a  distinct  head.  Ludevit  Stur 
had  this  to  say  in  praise  of  his  mother  tongue  : 

"  Viewed  from  the  standpoint  of  philology, 


ii2        THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

Slovak  appears  to  us  as  a  distinct  and  separate 
language,  without  which  it  would  be  impracti- 
cable to  formulate  a  comparative  grammar  of 
Slavic  tongues,  because  it  forms  a  connecting 
link  between  them  all." 

Dr.  Samuel  Czambel,  in  one  of  the  latest 
works  on  the  subject  {Slovdci  a  ich  rec, 
1903),  also  essays  to  prove  the  independence 
of  his  mother  tongue.  But  if  truth  must  be 
told,  all  the  great  philologists  oppose  Czam- 
bel and  the  other  grammarians  who  hold  with 
him. 

Be  it  as  it  may,  the  fact  remains  that  until 
Bernolak's  time  (1 762-1813)  writers  of  Slo- 
vak birth,  such  as  Daniel  Sinapius  (Horcicka), 
Daniel  Krman,  Matthew  Bel,  Bohuslav  Tab- 
lie,  George  Palkovic,  Stephen  Leska,  George 
Rybay,  etc.,  all  composed  their  works  in  Bohe- 
mian. Especially  was  this  true  of  the  Protest- 
ants, who  have  always  remained  faithful  to  the 
Bohemian.  It  is  not  without  interest  to  know 
that  Slovak  Protestants  to  this  day  use  Bohe- 
mian hymns,  catechisms,  and  Bible.  Indeed, 
the  holy  book  has  never  been  translated  into 
Slovak. 

Many  reasons  there  were  that  led  to  the  lit- 
erary secession  from  the  Bohemian.  Religious 
zeal  and    the    ever-increasing  antagonism  be- 


LANGUAGE  AND  LITERATURE      113 

tween  the  Catholics  and  Protestants  were 
probably  the  chief  contributing  causes. 

Then  there  was  the  cry :  "  Write  as  you 
speak  ! "  At  home  the  people  used  Slovak  ; 
in  the  church  the  preacher  conducted  services 
in  Bohemian.  That  was  a  situation  admittedly 
incongruous.  "  The  present  style  of  writing 
affected  by  Bohemians,"  wrote  Safafik  to  Kol- 
lar  in  1827,  "can  never  become  popular 
among  Slovaks.  .  .  We  authors  must  play 
the  role  of  Brahmins,  of  priests,  whose  sermons 
the  people  will  not  understand."  Again,  the 
terms  "Slovak"  and  "  Bohemian,"  each  owing 
allegiance  to  a  different  country,  were  a  serious 
obstacle  to  lasting  unity. 

Still  another  reason  was  that  the  Magyars 
neglected  no  opportunity  to  remind  their 
Slovak  brothers-in-law  that  Bohemian  was  a 
foreign  language  in  Hungary.  After  the  death 
of  Joseph  II.,  who  had  dreamed  of  making 
Hungary  a  German  state,  as  related  elsewhere, 
the  Magyars  founded,  in  1 791,  a  chair  of  the 
Magyar  language  and  literature  at  the  national 
university.  Jealous  of  this  signal  achieve- 
ment, the  Slovaks  also  demanded  some  con- 
cession for  themselves  from  the  government. 
But  as  Bohemian  was  being  stigmatized  as 
"  foreign  "   and  inadmissible,  the  Catholics,  in 

8 


ii4        THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

1793,  formed  a  "Slovak  Learned  Society" 
for  the  cultivation  of  their  own  tongue.  In 
this  way  they  hoped  to  obtain  in  the  future 
what  was  denied  to  them  at  that  time. 

Then  aeain,  between  1620- 1820  Bohemian 
had  been  practically  dead  in  its  own  home. 
Expelled  from  schools  and  administration  by 
the  promoters  of  the  anti-reformation  move- 
ment— become  the  language  of  an  ignorant  and 
brutalized  peasantry — how  could  it  defend  its 
rights  in  Slovakland  when  it  was  helpless  on 
its  native  heath  ? 

Finally,  why  should  the  Catholic  Slovaks 
favor  Bohemian  ?  Surely  no  such  reverent 
tradition  and  affectionate  ties  bound  them  to 
it  as  was  the  case  with  the  Protestants.  On  the 
contrary,  they  had  every  reason  to  dislike  it. 
It  will  be  remembered  that  in  the  fifteenth 
century  the  Hussites,  led  by  John  Jiskra,  of 
Brandys,  had  overrun  Upper  Hungary.  The 
settling  in  Slovakland  of  these  warriors,  whom 
religious  persecution  had  driven  from  Bohe- 
mia, was  productive  of  far-reaching  results. 
In  the  first  place,  the  Hussites  had  sown  the 
first  seed  of  Protestantism  among  the  people 
whose  country  they  had  invaded.  Secondly, 
they  imposed  on  the  natives  their  idiom,  forc- 
ing it  to  the  front  in  schools  and  churches,  and 


LANGUAGE  AND  LITERATURE      115 

to  a  certain  extent  in  communal  affairs,  to  the 
exclusion  of  Latin.  Most  important  of  all,  the 
Hussites  brought  about  the  regeneration  of 
the  people  in  a  national  sense.  In  the  seven- 
teenth century,  after  the  disastrous  battle  of 
the  White  Mountain,  thousands  of  Protestants 
from  Bohemia  again  flocked  to  Slovakland. 
The  relations  which  spring  from  common  faith 
were  cemented  anew.  Naturally,  the  Catholic 
clergy  could  not  remain  indifferent,  seeing  what 
inroads  "  the  religion  imported  from  Bohemia  " 
was  making  among  the  faithful. 

Already  before  Bernolak's  time  the  separat- 
ist tendencies  were  more  or  less  noticeable. 
It  may  be  laid  down  as  a  general  rule  that, 
while  the  Protestants  always  adhered  scru- 
pulously to  the  chaste  model  of  the  Kralic 
Bible,  the  Catholics  from  the  very  start  seemed 
to  favor  local  forms  of  speech.  Every  pamphlet 
that  came  out  in  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth 
centuries  from  the  Catholic  presses  showed 
these  grammatical  deflections.  In  the  six- 
teenth century  two  Bohemian  letters,  f  and  e, 
were  dropped  altogether,  and  such  forms — typi- 
cal of  the  Slovak  of  to-day— /#'  nesem  (I  carry), 
instead  of  the  Bohemian  jd  nesu,  otcowho 
(father's),  instead  of  otcom,  were  introduced. 
Numerous  words  foreign  to  Bohemian,  were 


u6        THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

adopted,  z&vidiek  (highland),  raz  (once), pdcit 
(to  please),  robit  (to  work),  neskor  (later),  and 
so  forth. 

Slowly  but  steadily  the  divergence  grew. 
Alexander  Macsaj,  a  Paulist  priest,  published 
at  Trnava,  in  1718,  a  harangue  in  defence  of 
the  Catholic  faith,  in  the  "  Slovak  language." 
A  bolder  secessionist  than  Macsaj,  and  ad- 
mittedly more  intelligent,  was  Joseph  Ignace 
Bajza,  also  a  priest,  born  in  1 754.  While 
Macsaj  wrote  at  haphazard,  seemingly  with  no 
definite  object  in  view,  there  was  clearly  a 
method  in  Bajza's  composition. 

To  Anton  Bernolak,  however,  belongs  the 
full  credit  of  inaugurating  the  separatist  move- 
ment and  making  it  a  success.  It  was  he  who 
codified  Slovak.  Before  Bernolak's  appear- 
ance, one  could  not  speak  of  Slovak  literature, 
— rather,  of  literature  in  Slovakland.  Born  in 
Slanice,  in  the  county  of  Orava,  on  October 
14th,  1762,  of  the  lower  class  of  nobility,  the 
"zemans,"  Bernolak  was  destined  by  his 
parents  for  priesthood.  Slavic  lore  attracted 
him  from  his  early  youth.  As  a  student  of 
theology,  in  the  seminaries  at  Trnava  and 
Pressburg,  he  conceived,  and  later  executed,  a 
scheme  whereby  his  mother  tongue  might  be 
adapted    to   literary  uses.     With  that  end  in 


LANGUAGE  AND  LITERATURE      117 

view,  at  the  age  of  twenty-five  years,  he  pub- 
lished a  Latin  treatise.  In  1790  appeared  his 
grammar,  a  book  in  which  the  author's  ambi- 
tious plans  were  set  forth  in  full.  H  is  "  lexicon," 
which  is  quite  an  exhaustive  and  laborious  work, 
was  published  between  1825-1827,  thanks  to 
the  munificence  of  Canon  Palkovic.1  Crude 
in  material  and  replete  with  faults  that  even 
his  admiring  friends  could  not  overlook,  the 
first  two  volumes  by  the  youthful  priest  had  a 
startling  effect.  The  Protestants  ranged  them- 
selves in  sullen  opposition  to  the  innovating 
theories  of  Bernolak.  But  that  was  to  be  ex- 
pected. On  the  other  side,  all  the  Catholic 
clergy  promised  to  support  him.  Time  had 
proven  that  the  author  committed  several 
errors  of  judgment.  An  irremediable  mistake 
was  that  he  chose  the  wrong  dialect  on  which 
to  build.  Matthew  Bel  already  guessed  the 
truth  when  he  said  that  the  richest  and  purest 
dialect  was  the  one  spoken  about  an  equal  dis- 
tance from  the  seats  of  the  Bohemians,  Mora- 
vians, Poles  and  Magyars,  and  called,  from  its 
location,  "  Central  Slovak."     This  self-evident 


1  Many  books  printed  in  the  "  bernolacina  "  were  issued  at  the 
expense  of  Alexander  Rudnay,  Cardinal  Primate  of  Hungary,  who 
is  famous  for  his  words:  "  Slavus  sum;  et  si  in  cathedra  Petri 
forem,  Slavus  ero  !  " 


n8        THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

fact  Bernolak  either  did  not  know  or  would 
not  admit.  He  had  recourse,  instead,  to  the 
Trnava  and  Pressburg  dialects  ;  whether  he 
wished  to  compliment  the  Catholics,  predom- 
inating there,  or,  as  seems  more  likely,  because 
more  men  of  letters  and  publishers  flourished 
around  these  parts  than  elsewhere,  is  unknown. 
Still  another  bad  feature  of  Bernolak's  lan- 
guage was  its  phonetic  mould.  To  the  one  rule 
"Write  as  you  speak  "he  subordinated  every 
other  consideration.  Letters  f,  e,  u,  etc.,  which 
are  not  sounded  in  Slovak,  he  urged,  should  be 
eliminated  altogether;  and  he  advocated  the 
adoption  of  consonantal  combinations  dz  and 
dz.  Even  the  logical  connection  between  his 
creation  and  the  other  Slavonian  tongues  was 
lacking.  Nevertheless,  the  "  bernolacina,"  as 
it  became  known,  endured  some  sixty  years. 

In  order  to  make  his  innovation  popular, 
Bernolak  placed  himself  at  the  head  of  the 
"  Society  for  Slovak  Literary  Art,"  every 
member  of  which  had  to  take  a  pledge  to 
further  the  work.  Joseph  Bajza,  George 
Fandli,  Adalbert  Arady,  Simon  Falbi,  Anton 
Dattel,  George  Holly,  Joseph  Nejedty,  and 
Anton  Saffarovic  all  enrolled  as  members  of 
the  society  or  lent  their  aid.  Trnava,  having 
a  Catholic  college,  was  chosen  as  a  center  of 


LANGUAGE  AND  LITERATURE      119 

this  movement,  and  in  time,  branches,  with 
bookstores  in  each,  were  established  at  Nitra, 
Rovna,  Banska"  Bystrica  (Beszterczebanya), 
Jager  (Eger),  Roznava  (Roznyo).  "  The 
Society  of  the  Friends  of  the  Slovak  Language 
and  Literature"  was  another  body  that  was 
organized  to  propagate  Bernolak's  language. 

Whether  it  was  jealousy  or  a  desire  not  to 
be  outdone  by  the  Catholics,  the  Protestants, 
too,  began  to  band  themselves  into  literary 
societies.  An  "  Association  for  the  Advance- 
ment of  Slovak  Letters "  was  founded  about 
this  time  by  Bohulav  Tablic,  George  Palkovic, 
M.  Hamaliar,  L.  Bartholemaeides,  M.  Godra, 
and  S.  Cernansky.  Owing  to  the  extreme 
poverty  of  its  members,  the  association  did  not 
last  long.  But  already  in  1803  a  new  organi- 
zation, having  ample  means  at  its  disposal, 
took  up  the  place  of  the  defunct  one.  The 
"  Institutum  Linguae  et  Literaturae  Slavicse," 
for  the  promotion  of  Bohemian-Slovak,  is  justly 
celebrated  in  the  annals  of  Slovakland.  The 
lecture-rooms  of  the  institution  in  the  Evan- 
gelical Lyceum  at  Pressburg,  swarmed  with 
patriotic  youth.  Under  Ludevit  Stur,  the  In- 
stitute reached  the  zenith  of  its  renown.  The 
last  association  of  this  kind  among  the  Protes- 
tants  was   the    "  Slovak   Literary   Society  at 


120       THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

v 

Banska  Stiavnica"  (Selmecbanya).  J.  Holuby, 
B.  Tablic,  J.  Seberiny,  A.  Lovich,  and  J. 
Rybay  were  its  founders.  This  latter-named 
society  was  instrumental  in  establishing  a  chair 
of  Bohemian-Slovak  language  and  literature  at 
the  Evangelical  Lyceum  at  Banska  Stiavnica. 
Still  another  literary  schism  was  to  come 
in  1 843- 1 844.  This  time  it  was  the  young 
Protestant  party,  led  by  Ludevit  Stiir,  that 
decided  to  secede  from  the  Bohemian.  His- 
tory has  shown  that  Stiir  was  actuated  by  the 
loftiest  of  motives  in  taking  this  step.  It  grieved 
this  zealous  patriot  to  see  his  little  nation  torn 
up  in  so  many  factions.  He  sincerely  deplored 
the  centrifugal  tendencies  in  the  ranks  of  the 
Catholics.  Unless  checked  in  time,  he  believed 
there  would  be  a  complete  rupture  between 
them  and  the  Protestants.  Stiir  was  convinced 
that  there  must  be  some  medium  of  under- 
standing between  those  two  hostile  factions, 
but  what  was  it  ?  That  "  bernolacina  "  would 
ever  unite  Catholics  and  Protestants,  he 
doubted.  How  to  win  back  to  the  Slovak 
cause  the  renegade  "  zemans,"  with  their  well- 
known  aversion  to  Bohemian,  was  another 
matter  that  occupied  Stur.  With  the  "  zemans  " 
in  the  ranks,  the  nation's  fighters  would  find 
invaluable    allies.      Again,    he    perceived    the 


LANGUAGE  AND  LITERATURE      121 

need  of  awakening  his  people  from  their  long 
sleep.  Great  events  were  imminent,  and  he 
felt  that  his  people  should  be  ready  when  the 
time  came.  How  was  he  to  strike  the  right 
chord  in  their  hearts  ?  Stiir's  intuition  told 
him  that  it  was  useless  to  make  an  appeal  in 
Bohemian.  He  must  commune  with  his  people 
in  the  tongue  in  which  they  prayed  and  sang, 
the  tongue  that  alone  was  natural  to  them, 
and  that  was  Slovak.  Stiir  went  to  work, 
and  in  due  time  the  tenth  Slavic  language  was 
born. 

Thinking  to  profit  by  Bernolak's  blunder, 
Stiir  decided  in  favor  of  a  dialect  which  obtains 
in  the  counties  of  Liptov,  Orava,  Turec,  Upper 
Trencin,  Upper  Nitra,  Zvolen,  Tekov,  Hont, 
Novohrad,  and  a  part  of  Gemer.  As  far  as 
concerned  the  dialect,  the  choice  was  a  happy 
one.  Here,  in  the  depths  of  the  Tatra  Moun- 
tains, was  a  rich  language,  apparently  least 
affected  by  surrounding  influences.  Unfortu- 
nately, the  grammarian  made  the  same  fatal 
mistake  as  Bernolak.  He  adopted  the  pho- 
netic system. 

Now  Slovaks  had  three  different  schools  of 
writing : 

The  Catholics  continued  to  use  "  berno- 
lacina." 


122        THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

The  young  Protestant  party  favored  gener- 
ally Stiir's  dialect,  which  was  called  "  sturstina." 

The  older  writers,  like  Kollar  and  Safafik, 
remained  faithful  to  Bohemian-Slovak. 

Bitter  quarrels,  lasting  for  years,  broke  out. 

The  Bohemian  literary  institution  "  Matice 
Ceska"  issued  a  warning  "About  the  need  of 
one  literary  language  for  Bohemians,  Mora- 
vians, and  Slovaks." 

"  A  number  of  the  younger  Slovak  literary 
men  [wrote  Francis  Palacky  in  1846]  began 
last  year  against  the  advice  and  entreaties  of 
their  colleagues  to  again  lay  the  foundation 
of  a  new  Slovak  literature,  which  might  be 
designated,  by  way  of  distinction  from  those 
previously  tried,  a  Tatra  literature.  Lacking 
knowledge  and  experience,  these  men  have 
taken  a  course  that  must  lead  them  and  their 
followers  direct  to  destruction  and  ruin.  If 
any  of  the  Slovak  dialects  had  found  their 
way,  within  the  last  years,  into  legislative 
bodies  and  county  conventions  ;  if  laws  had 
been  framed  therein  ;  if  it  were  the  language 
of  the  executive  and  of  the  higher  schools, 
then  hopes  might  be  entertained  that  some- 
time it  might  usher  into  life  a  new  literature, 
though  it  could  boast  of  none  in  the  past. 
Now,  however,  when  Slovak  is  almost  pro- 
scribed by  law  and  excluded  from  the  diet  and 
the  administration  ;  when  the  Magyar,  follow- 


LANGUAGE  AND  LITERATURE      123 

ing  in  the  wake  of  victory,  is  beginning  to 
force  its  way,  with  the  aid  of  the  state,  into  the 
very  village  school ;  when  the  higher  classes 
have  deserted  Slovak  almost  to  a  man  for  the 
Magyar  cause,  and  the  nation,  weak  numeri- 
cally, is  bound  to  look  for  support  to  the 
middle  and  lower  classes  and,  therefore,  mostly 
poorer  classes,  who  are,  besides,  divided  and 
antagonized  by  several  subdialects ;  who  have 
nowhere  a  public  social  life,  nowhere  indepen- 
dent centres  of  their  more  important  affairs  ; 
who  are  forsaken  by  every  one,  who  struggle 
between  life  and  death,  and  feel  themselves 
whirled  irresistibly  into  an  all-engulfing  vortex 
— it  is  a  mistake,  fatal  and  grievous,  to  think  of 
such  a  work,  to  incite  anew  old  disputes,  to 
weaken  by  division  forces  that  are  already 
weak,  perhaps  to  lose  sight,  in  the  heat  of  a 
new  strife,  of  the  principal  object." 

Jonas  Zaborsky,  addressing  Caspar  Fejer- 
pataky,  argued  as  follows  : 

"  You  want  the  Slovaks  to  discontinue  the 
Bohemian  and  to  write  in  their  mother  tongue. 
Which  of  the  Slovak  dialects,  however,  will 
you  choose  for  that  purpose  ?  Will  it  be 
the  Liptov  ?  the  Trencin  ?  the  Sarys  ?  the 
Gemer,  or  Lord  knows  which  ?  Can  you  not 
see  that  there  are  as  many  dialects  in  our  land 
as  there  are  counties  ?  That  these  dialects 
vary  as  much  from  one  another  as  they  all 
differ  from  the  Bohemian  ?     Which  one,  pray, 


124        THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

will  you  elevate  to  the  dignity  of  written  lan- 
guage ?     Your  answer  will  be  :  none  of  them  ; 
that  you  will  select  and  retain  that  which  is 
best  in  all.      But  what  dialect  will  you  use  as 
the  groundwork,  and  who  is  to  decide  what 
shall  be  added  thereto   from   other  dialects? 
Friend,  we  should  not  give  up  the  Bohemian, 
not  so  much  for  the  sake  of   unity  with  the 
Bohemians,  but    in    the    interest  of   our  own 
unity.      Suppose   we   were   successful    in    im- 
proving the  grammar.     Yet,  in  a  lexicographi- 
cal sense,  we  will  not,   and  in  the  nature  of 
things  cannot,  have  our  own   language.     All 
the  terms  relating  to  higher,  abstract  notions, 
all  the  words  in  the  realm  of  science  and  art, 
must  be  taken  from  the  Bohemian  storehouse. 
Create  a  literary  language  to-day,  and  you  will 
find  that  you  will  not  make  yourself  one  iota 
more  intelligent  to  the  Slovaks.    The  poor  qual- 
ity of  our  literary  productions,  which  is  due 
partly  to  the  wretched  condition  of  our  schools 
and  partly  to  the  lack  of  public  libraries,  should 
deter  us  from  trying  to  build  up  an  indepen- 
dent literature." 

"  As  matters  are  [pleaded  John  Kollar],  Sla- 
vonians are  already  so  divided,  cut  up,  lacer- 
ated, scattered,  and  dismembered,  externally 
and  internally,  that  it  is  a  treason  to  reduce 
these  particles  to  atoms  almost  invisible ;  on 
the  contrary,  the  person  would  deserve  well 
who  would  undertake  to  weld  into  one  the 
many  detached  fragments.  Other  nations  have 
shown  us  the  way  a  long  time  ago.     The  ocean 


LANGUAGE  AND  LITERATURE      125 

divides  North  America  from  England,  and 
yet  these  countries  have  but  one  literary 
tongue.  Among  Germans,  how  many  local 
forms  of  speech,  dissimilar  from  one  another, 
there  are !  The  Kralic  Bible  originated  in 
Moravia.  Komensk^,  Zerotin,  Ctibor,  and 
other  shining  stars  of  the  first  magnitude  in 
the  old  literature,  were  Moravians.  Tranovsky 
was  a  Silesian  by  birth.  Cernansky,  Dolezal, 
Hruskovic,  Semian,  and  other  Slovaks  wrote 
correct  Bohemian.  Some  of  the  foremost  Bo- 
hemian writers  of  recent  times,  whose  names 
will  live  for  ages  in  the  history  of  Bohemian 
letters,  belong,  by  birth,  to  Moravia  and  Pan- 
nonic  Slovakland." 

All  appeals  for  harmony  were  in  vain.  One 
thing  became  evident  even  in  the  heat  of  the 
quarrel — namely,  that  a  return  to  Bohemian 
was  out  of  the  question. 

M.  M.  Hodza  published,  in  1847,  what  he 
called  Epigenes  Slovenicus,  and  a  year  later 
VUin  o  slovencine,  and  in  both  of  these  philo- 
logical works  he  tried  to  prove  that  the  system 
of  phonetic  spelling,  which  was  adopted  by 
Bernolak  and  Stiir,  could  not  be  maintained. 
Unless  the  langugage  was  reconstructed  on 
an  etymological  basis,  confusion  and  dishar- 
mony were  bound  to  continue.  It  appears 
that  Hodza's  books  came  out  at  a  propitious 


126        THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

moment ;  every  one  seemed  to  be  getting  tired 
of  the  endless  bickering.  The  two  great  par- 
ties, Bernolakists  and  Stiirists,  were  both  will- 
ing to  make  mutual  concessions.  Peace  was 
desired  above  all.  Accordingly  a  conference 
was  arranged  between  representative  men  at 
Cachtice  (Csejte),  in  1847,  and  the  following 
resolution  was  passed  :  "  It  is  agreed  that  a 
special  philological  commission  be  chosen 
which  shall  pass  on  the  work  of  Michael  M. 
Hodza,  Epigenes  Slovenicus,  treating  of  the 
theory  of  our  language  and  its  grammar." 

The  most  prominent  writers  of  the  two  war- 
ring factions  were  named  to  serve  on  the  com- 
mission :  L.  Stiir,  O.  Caban,  E.  Gerometta,  J. 
Scasny,  C.  Cochius,  B.  Hrobon,  and  M. 
Hattala. 

The  revolution  that  broke  out  in  1848  of 
course  made  it  impracticable  for  the  commis- 
sion to  come  together.  Some  members  of  it, 
like  Stiir,  were  too  occupied  with  other  mat- 
ters to  think  of  grammars.  They  had  been 
called  to  lead  their  people  to  battle.  But  there 
was  one  scholar  on  the  commission  who  went 
quietly  to  work,  and  before  the  year  1850  was 
over  he  wrote  and  published,  along  the  lines 
suggested  by  Hodza,  a  Grammatical  Lingua 
Slovenica,     This  was  Martin  Hattala.     In  the 


LANGUAGE  AND  LITERATURE      127 

month  of  October,  1851,  another  philological 
conference  took  place,  this  time  in  Pressburg. 
Bernolakists  and  bturists  again  came  together, 
and  in  the  most  harmonious  way  unanimously 
voted  their  approval  of  Hattala's  book.  At 
the  same  time  it  was  agreed  to  translate  and 
publish  it  in  Slovak.  This  was  done  in  1852, 
when  it  issued  under  the  title  of  a  Short  Slo- 
vak Grammar.  Three  distinguished  Protes- 
tants (Stiirists)  and  three  equally  renowned 
Catholics  (Bernolakists)  announced  above 
their  names  in  the  preface  that  the  "gram- 
mar met  the  approval  of  both  parties,  and  that 
both  have  agreed  to  abide  by  it  in  the  future." 
This  Pressburg  Conference  at  last  made  the 
Slovak  language  uniform.1 

*  *  * 

Five  names  are  inseparably  associated  with 
the  new  literary  and  national  movement  that 
was  born  immediately  prior  to  the  revolution  of 
1848.  They  are  those  of  John  Kollar,  Paul 
J.  Safafik,  Ludevit  Stur,  Joseph  M.  Hurban, 
and  Michael  M.  Hodza.  Properly  speaking, 
Kollar  and  Safafik  belong  to  Bohemian  litera- 

1  Dr.  Czambel  still  recognizes  five  distinct  dialects :  That  of  the 
Calvinists  in  the  neighborhood  of  Kosice  and  Uzhorod  (Ungvar) ; 
Sarys  ;  Bernolak's  ;  Star's  ;  and  Hodza-Hattala's. 


128        THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

ture,  having  always  made  common  cause  with 
it,  and  upholding,  to  the  end  of  their  lives,  the 
literary  unity  of  the  two  countries.  Still,  their 
writings  did  so  much  toward  the  nationaliza- 
tion of  the  Slovaks  that  their  names  cannot 
be  omitted. 

A  most  singular  circumstance,  and  one  that 
even  a  casual  student  cannot  fail  to  observe,  is 
the  number  of  names  of  ecclesiastics  which 
one  encounters  in  Slovak  literature.  So  out 
of  proportion  are  the  clergy  to  the  laity  repre- 
sented that  one  is  irresistibly  led  to  believe 
that  but  for  them  Slovak  letters  might  have 
never  taken  root  for  lack  of  cultivators.  Espe- 
cially is  this  true  of  the  early  authors,  most  of 
whom,  if  not  all,  were  either  clergymen  or  peo- 
ple who  in  their  youth  had  received  a  theologi- 
cal education  at  one  of  the  many  seminaries 
that  flourished  in  Upper  Hungary.  Thus, 
Kollar  was  a  minister  of  the  gospel.  The 
famous  triumvirs,  Stiir,  Hodza,  and  Hurban, 
had  all  been  prepared  for  the  church.  Of  the 
lon£  list  of  writers  with  an  ecclesiastical  train- 
ing  it  will  suffice  to  name  : 

John  Holl£  (i 785-1849),  a  Catholic  priest, 
a  renowned  poet  of  the  Bernolak  group  of 
writers. 

Evangelical    pastors :     Andrew     Sladkovic, 


JOHN   HOLLY 


LANGUAGE  AND  LITERATURE      129 

Samuel  Chaliipka,  John  Chalupka,  Dr.  Charles 
Kuzmany,  professor  of  theology,  Samuel  To- 
masik,  Ladislav  Pauliny,  Paul  Dobsinsk^,  C. 
Zoch  or  Cochius,  August  Krcmery,  Samuel 
Godra,  Andrew  Bella,  Joseph  Podhradsky, 
Daniel  Marothy,  Daniel  Bachat,  and  host  of 
others. 

"  Why  are  we  meeting  with  such  a  small 
measure  of  success  ?"  complained  young  Hur- 
ban  in  1847,  and,  forthwith,  he  proceeded  to 
answer  himself :  "  Because  our  leaders  have 
been  till  now,  almost  without  exception  theo- 
logians. So  abundant  are  the  books  and  ideals 
with  which  they  have  befriended  us,  that  we 
Slovaks  should  be  the  happiest  nation  in  the 
world,  provided  literature  and  ideals  were 
enough  to  make  nations  happy.  Ours  is  a 
purely  theological  nationality.  Until  some 
genius  other  than  a  churchman  places  himself 
at  the  head  of  our  affairs,  we  shall  continue  to 
decay." 

When  John  Kolldr  first  published  his  famous 
lyric-epic  poem,  Sldvy  Dcera — Slavids  Daugh- 
ter, in  1824,  Stiir  and  those  of  his  compatriots 
who  were  destined  to  revolutionize  Slovak- 
land  were  yet  boys.  This  poem,  written  in 
Bohemian  was  a  most  stirring  summons  to 
the  Slavs  to  unite. 


130        THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

The  Slavic  peoples  then  living  under  the 
rule  of  Russia,  Prussia,  Austria,  and  Turkey 
presented  a  composite  picture  of  the  direst 
misery.  With  aching-  heart  the  poet  tells  of 
the  woes  that  oppressed  them.  Like  Childe 
Harold,  he  travels  through  the  Baltic  and  Po- 
labian  provinces  (along  the  River  Elbe)  "  that 
were  once  the  cradle,  but  are  now  the  tomb  of 
the  race."  He  recounts  all  the  terrible  wrongs 
inflicted  on  the  Polabians  by  their  old-time 
antagonists,  the  Teutons.  In  Bohemia  and 
Moravia  every  place  of  interest  is  visited  and 
the  deeds  of  persons  of  fame  recounted  in  the 
poem.  From  those  countries  the  poet  pilgrim 
goes  to  Slovakland  and  further  down  south 
and  east  to  Croatia  and  Servia.  Wrathfully 
he  hurls  sinister  imprecations  at  the  various 
foes  of  the  Slavs,  and  greater  yet  is  his  anger 
at  those  who,  turning  renegades,  have  become 
traitors  to  their  blood  and  ancestry.  Every- 
where the  bard  beholds  disunion  and  hurtful 
jealousy,  and  he  deplores  these  hereditary  sins 
of  the  Slavs  ;  for,  in  his  opinion,  they  alone  are 
to  blame  for  the  wretched  condition  of  their 
respective  branches.  From  all  the  fragments 
he  would  mould  one  immense  statue  before 
which  Europe  should  kneel  in  awe.  The  key- 
note of  the  whole  poem  is  an  exhortation  to 


LANGUAGE  AND  LITERATURE      131 

unity.  "  Learn  to  love  your  nation  !  "  he  thun- 
ders. "  Let  the  words  echo  from  the  Tatra 
Mountains  to  Crna  Gora  (Montenegro)  and 
from  Krkonose  to  the  Urals  :  Hell  for  traitors, 
heaven  for  patriotic  Slavs  ! " 

The  effect  of  the  poem  was  tremendous,  far 
greater  than  Kollar  ever  dared  to  hope.  In 
time  the  whole  Slavic  world  rang  with  the 
verses  of  the  Sldvy  Dcera.  To  the  youth  the 
poem  became  a  creed  to  believe  in  and  to  the 
literates  an  example  to  follow.  Schoolboys 
learned  by  heart  most  of  the  fine  passages, 
with  which  especially  the  prologue  abounds, 
vowing  to  avenge  the  wrongs  done  to  their 
kinsmen.  It  was  at  this  time  that  the  pan- 
slavist  spectre  made  its  first  appearance  in 
Europe.  Kollar  was  furiously  attacked  by 
Magyar  and  Austrian  writers  for  fanning  the 
national  passions  of  the  Slavs.  In  Hungary 
entire  editions  of  the  book  were  bought  in  and 
burned  to  prevent  its  circulation.  But  so  great 
was  the  demand  for  it  that  many  booklovers, 
unable  to  procure  it,  because  of  police  vigi- 
lance, had  complete  copies  transcribed  by  hand. 
In  1837  Kolldr  issued  a  short  treatise  in  Ger- 
man on  literary  unity  among  the  Slavs.  This 
publication  created  another  stir  in  Central 
Europe. 


132        THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

A  man  who  had  influenced  the  destinies  of 
Slovaks  to  a  remarkable  degree  was  Paul  J. 
Safafik  ( 1 795-1861).  Like  Kollar,  he  too  re- 
mained faithful  to  Bohemian.  While  the  one 
was  a  poet,  who  prophesied  a  brighter  future 
to  the  Slavs,  the  other  was  a  savant,  dispas- 
sionate and  unprejudiced,  who  took  upon  him- 
self the  task  of  revealing  the  treasures  of  their 
past.  Safafik's  volume  on  Slavic  Antiquities, 
published  in  1837,  an<^  Slavic  Ethnography, 
that  came  out  in  1842,  attracted  wide-spread 
attention.  Accompanying  the  latter  work  was 
a  map  on  which  the  Slavs,  to  the  number 
of  eighty  millions,  appeared  to  occupy,  in  un- 
broken continuity,  an  immense  part  of  Europe, 
extending  from  the  Bohemian  Forest  on  the 
west  to  the  Ural  Mountains,  and  from  the 
Polar  Sea  on  the  north  to  the  yE^ean  on 
the  south.  To  the  Slavs  this  picture  was  at 
once  inspiring  and  pleasing.  They  took  new 
courage  and  hope.  The  satisfaction  they  ex- 
perienced from  Safarik's  researches  was  only 
second  to  the  astonishment  felt  by  the  rest  of 
Europe  at  the  potentialities  of  the  people, 
shown  as  a  unit,  on  the  ethnographic  map. 

No  country  welcomed  the  writings  of  Kol- 
lar and  Safarik  with  greater  enthusiasm  than 
Slovakland.      The    Slovaks    were   proud    of 


LANGUAGE  AND  LITERATURE      133 

the  achievements  of  their  two  countrymen,  no 
doubt.  But  there  was  an  infinitely  deeper 
reason  why  they  should  rejoice.  They  felt 
that  they  were  no  longer  without  friends  and 
allies.  The  knowledge  that  they  were  one  of 
a  family  of  eighty  millions  gratified  and  reas- 
sured them.  Why  fear  for  the  future  because 
the  present  was  gloomy  ?  Did  not  Kollar, 
their  prophet,  predict  that  in  time  to  come 
things  would  grow  brighter?  Enemies  may 
persecute  them,  if  they  will.  But  their  chil- 
dren will  be  free,  and  if  not  they,  then  their 
children's  children.  The  Tatra  Mountains 
were  the  cradle  of  their  common  ancestors. 
Would  the  Slavic  peoples  ever  permit  the 
alienation  of  that  sacred  land  ? 

Kollar  and  Safafik  were  already  famous 
when  Ludevit  (Ludwig)  Stur,  then  a  young- 
ster just  returned  from  a  college  in  Germany, 
was  beginning  to  make  his  entrance  into  public 
life.  An  ardent  Slovak  by  conviction,  whereas 
Kollar  and  Safarik  were  Slovaks  only  by  the 
accident  of  birth,  a  tireless  and  enthusiastic 
worker,  and  an  idealist  wholly  devoted  to  the 
Hegelian  school  of  philosophy,  a  theologian 
whom  the  versatility  of  his  talent  and  the  mul- 
titudinous needs  of  his  country  made  succes- 
sively an   orator,  writer,  journalist,  politician, 


i34        THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

and  soldier — Stiir  was,  according  to  the  unani- 
mous verdict  of  his  enemies  and  friends,  the 
most  remarkable  champion  of  Slovak  rights 
since  Matthew  Csdk's  days.  Aiding  him  were 
Joseph  M.  H urban  and  Michael  M.  Hodza. 
Contemporaries  and  friends,  these  splendid  pa- 
triots divided  the  enormous  task  that  lay  before 
them  according  to  the  respective  talents  and 
the  natural  bent  of  their  minds.  And  so  indis- 
pensable were  they  to  one  another  and  collect- 
ively to  the  cause  which  they  served  so  well, 
that  but  for  their  united  efforts  it  would  prob- 
ably have  failed.  Very  oddly,  all  three  received 
the  same  training — for  the  Church.  This  felic- 
itous circumstance  helped  them  to  act  in  con- 
cert, even  though  it  may  have  made  their  life 
work  seem  rather  too  one-sided.  All  three 
believed  that  by  nationalization  alone  their 
nation  could  be  raised  to  a  higher  plane, 
morally,  socially  and  intellectually.  Being  pa- 
triotic Slovaks,  it  goes  without  saying  that 
they  were  enthusiastic  Slavonians  at  the  same 
time. 

Nothing  ever  daunted  Stiir.  Opposition 
only  served  to  redouble  his  energy.  Kolldr 
frequently  gave  vent  to  his  despair,  seeing  the 
utter  hopelessness  of  the  situation.  The  na- 
tive   nobility    alienated ;    the   Catholic    clergy 


-^IW^-, 


LANGUAGE  AND  LITERATURE      135 

hostile  and  irreconcilable  ;  the  common  people 
improvident  and  pathetically  indifferent  to 
their  own  fate  —  a  disheartening  outlook,  in- 
deed !  All  this  Stiir  knew  and  saw,  but  he 
would  not  concede  that  everything  was  lost. 
With  a  will  he  set  to  work  in  the  Pressburg 
Lyceum,  in  which  institution  he  had  held  the 
post  of  assistant  professor.  In  time,  and  thanks 
to  his  unflagging  energy,  his  lecture  room  be- 
came the  most  popular  of  all  the  Protestant 
schools  of  learning  in  Slovakland.  Hundreds 
of  young  men  flocked  to  Pressburg  to  be  near 
him.  Such  was  the  affection  of  the  students 
for  the  master,  that  when  in  1844  Stur  was  re- 
moved from  the  lyceum,  because  of  alleged 
anti-Magyar  agitation,  numbers  of  the  youth 
left  Pressburg  to  continue  their  studies  else- 
where. To  commemorate  this  exodus  from 
Pressburg,  John  Matiiska,  one  of  the  voluntary 
exiles,  composed  under  the  spur  of  that  bitter 
moment  a  touching  song,  now  so  popular  : 

Clouds  above  Tatra  soar 
And  lightning's  thunders  roar; 
O  brothers,  never  fear  : 
The  skies  again  will  clear, 
We  shall  live  evermore  ! ' 

1  Nad  Tatrou  sa  bliska,  hromy  divo  bijii : 
Nebojme  se  bratia, 
Vsak  sa  ony  ztratia — 
Slovaci  oziju  ! 


136        THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

Happily  for  his  nation  Stiir  devoted  himself 
wholly  to  letters  and  journalism.  His  enemies 
might  make  it  impossible  for  him  to  teach ; 
still  they  could  not  prevent  him  from  express- 
ing his  thoughts  in  writing.  And,  convinced 
that  Bohemian  was  not  less  unsympathetic 
than  Bernolak's  literary  invention,  he  grasped 
what  he  believed  to  be  the  most  popular  native 
dialect.  The  grammar  he  wrote  has  been 
termed  a  keystone  of  Slovak  literature.  On 
the  lecture  platform  the  same  success  marked 
his  progress  as  in  the  literary  field.  Admiring 
followers  took  up  "sturstina"  at  once,  intro- 
ducing it  not  alone  in  journalism  but  in  belles- 
lettres  as  well.  While  Bernolak's  dialect  has 
been  preserved  to  us  only  in  the  poems  of 
John  Holty,  Stur's  school  has  produced,  and 
rightly  claims  as  its  own,  a  whole  galaxy  of 
clever  writers. 

The  appearance  of  the  first  number  of  Stur's 
Ndrodnie  Noviny  (National  Gazette)  on  Au- 
gust 1,  1845,  was  an  eventful  day,  long  to  be 
remembered.  In  this  journal  the  nation  at 
last  found  a  fearless  advocate  and  reliable 
guide.  The  publisher  had  to  wait  three  years 
before  the  necessary  concession  was  obtained 
from  the  £overnment,  and  it  is  said  that  but 
for  the  gracious  intercession  of  Baron  Kulmer, 


LANGUAGE  AND  LITERATURE      137 

it  would  have  never  been  granted.  The  times 
were  just  as  hostile  to  the  Slovaks  then  as  they 
are  now.  Palkovic,  the  venerable  professor  at 
the  Pressburg  Lyceum,  for  instance,  incurred 
the  disfavor  of  the  government  because  he 
dared  to  change  the  name  of  his  publication 
from  Weekly  Gazette  to  Slovak  National  Ga- 
zette. After  a  searching  trial  that  nearly  cost 
him  the  concession,  Palkovic  won  his  case,  but 
the  word  "Slovak"  was  ordered  stricken  out 
from  the  title  page  !  A  supplement,  the 
Tatransky  Orol  (Tatra  Eagle),  accompanied 
every  number  of  Stur's  journal,  and  these  two 
publications,  one  devoting  its  columns  to  po- 
litical and  economical  questions  and  the  other 
to  belles-lettres,  constituted  in  those  days  the 
chief  literary  repository  of  the  Stur  school  of 
writers.  For  the  treatment  of  scientific  sub- 
jects H urban  founded,  in  1846,  an  excellent 
review  called  the  Slovenske'  Pohlady. 

Meantime,  revolution  was  approaching,  and 
while  its  terrors  lasted,  literary  activity  ceased 
altogether,  except  for  revolutionary  airs,  with 
which  H  urban,  Chaliipka,  Pauliny,  Botto, 
Tomasik,  Matuska,  and  others  greeted  the 
dawn  that  was  approaching,  and  with  which 
bluecoated  Slovak  volunteers  went  marching 
to  battle.     It    is  worthy   of   note    that    most, 


138        THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

if  not  all,  of  the  revolutionary  songs  have 
survived. 

By  turns  a  minister  of  the  Gospel,  a  Biblical 
scholar,  a  writer  on  philological,  educational 
and  political  subjects,  an  able  organizer,  a  pro- 
found reasoner,  Michael  M.  Hodza  (1811- 
1870)  had  but  two  equals  among  his  con- 
temporaries, Stur  and  Hurban.  As  for  con- 
summate tact  and  rare  judgment  he  stood 
unrivalled.  Many  were  the  delicate  and  even 
danoferous  missions  intrusted  to  him.  No 
Slovak  was  more  cruelly  or  systematically  per- 
secuted than  he.  His  career  was  cut  short  at 
the  height  of  its  usefulness.  Removed  from 
the  parish  which  was  his  only  means  of  liveli- 
hood, excommunicated  by  the  church  of  which 
his  profound  learning  was  an  ornament,  and  ex- 
pelled by  the  government  that  feared  and  hated 
him,  Hodza  died  a  miserable  exile.  The 
Epigenes  Slovenicus,  already  referred  to,  Vet  in, 
and  Dcr  Slowak  were  his  principal  works. 

Some  twenty  volumes,  in  addition  to  count- 
less articles  in  various  periodicals,  bear  testi- 
mony to  the  industry  of  Dr.  Joseph  M. 
Hurban  (181 7-1888).  Yet  it  is  not  as  a  liter- 
ary man  that  Hurban  commands  the  respect  of 
admiring  posterity.  He  will  be  remembered 
as  a  tribune  of  his  people.     But  for  Hurban's 


LANGUAGE  AND  LITERATURE      139 

indefatigable  labors,  the  storms  of  1848  might 
have  swept  over  the  Hungarian  highlands 
without  arousing  any  interest  on  the  part  of 
the  natives.  Irresistible,  indeed,  must  have 
been  the  powers  of  eloquence  of  this  Slovak 
O'Connell  to  have  moved  to  armed  rebellion  a 
nation  that  had  remained  quiescent  for  cen- 
turies. Stiir  was  the  heart,  Hodza  the  brains, 
but  Hurban  the  soul  of  the  revolutionary 
movement.  He  collected  funds,  provided 
weapons  and  ammunition,  organized  volunteer 
corps,  chose  trained  soldiers  to  lead  them, 
aided  financially  patriots  who  were  in  prison, 
besides  conducting  a  vast  correspondence. 

Certain  traits  all  the  Stiir  writers  had  in 
common  :  the  folk  song  constituted  their  favor- 
ite material  and  Slavic  fraternity  their  prime 
motive.  All  began  by  being  idealists,  Hegel- 
ians, but  some  of  them,  in  pursuing  their  ideals, 
ended  in  becoming  visionaries,  who  lost  them- 
selves hopelessly  in  the  mazes  of  mysticism 
and  general  vagueness,  to  cite  only  the  case  of 
Samo  Hrobon.  This  was  a  serious  fault  of 
the  Stiir  school.  To  lead  an  austere  life,  to 
scorn  civic  honors,  and  to  devote  one's  whole 
being  toward  the  deliverance  of  the  nation  from 
the  bondage  of  ignorance  formed  part  of  their 
teaching.     The  nationalism  of  Kollar's  poetry 


i4o       THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

attracted  them  no  less  than  Hegel's  philosophy. 
One  of  their  beliefs  was  that  the  Slavs,  with 
the  Slovaks  in  the  forefront,  would  be  the  first 
to  realize  Hegel's  future  perfect  state.  Why  ? 
Because  they  claimed  to  have  a  better  under- 
standing of  the  philosophy  of  that  noted  Ger- 
man than  he  himself  had.  The  Tatras,  as  the 
alleged  seat  of  the  aboriginal  Slavs,  were  glori- 
fied in  patriotic  verse,  and  even  Safank's  re- 
searches were  idealized  by  them.  The  ambition 
to  rule  was,  in  their  eyes,  reprehensible  ;  and 
they  prophesied  that  Slavic  territory  would 
crush  those  who  entered  upon  it  with  hostile 
intentions. 

Among  the  most  renowned  Sturists  should 
be  named  the  poets  Chaliipka,  Botto,  Krai, 
Tomasik,  and  Sladkovic,  and  Kalincak,  the 
novelist. 

Samuel  Chaliipka  (18 12-1883),  an  evan- 
gelical pastor,  was  descended  from  a  family  of 
authors.  The  Turkish  invasion  of  Upper 
Hungary  and  traditions  and  tales  clustering 
around  ruined  castles  were  his  most  successful 
themes.  Chalupka's  were  the  first  poems  to 
be  published  in  the  new  Slovak  language. 

Andrew  Sladkovic  (Braxatoris,  1820- 18 72), 
an  evangelical  pastor,  is  reputed  to  be  the  most 
talented  poet  ever  born  in  Slovakland.     Ala- 


LANGUAGE  AND  LITERATURE      141 

rina,  a  lyric-epic  poem,  which  portrays,  in  an 
idealized  form,  the  object  of  the  poet's  own  un- 
happy love  affair,  and  Deivan,  a  romance  of 
the  time  of  Matthew  Korvin,  are  supposed  to 
be  the  culmination  of  his  art.  As  a  poet, 
Sladkovic  ranks  higher  than  John  Kollar. 

Samuel  Tomasik  ( 1 8 1 3- 1 887),  an  evangelical 
pastor,  is  chiefly  remembered  for  the  author- 
ship of  Hej  Slovdci,  a  song  now  familiar  to 
every  Slavonian. 

John  Botto's  (1829-1881)  claim  to  fame 
rests  on  his  having  created  the  "  Janosik,"  a 
type  of  good-natured  brigand,  a  giant  in 
strength,  with  the  heart  of  a  child,  who  takes 
it  upon  himself  to  administer  justice  in  his 
own  way,  by  robbing  the  rich  to  give  to  the 
poor.     "Janosik"  is  a  kind  of  Slovak  Cid. 

John  Kalincak  (1822-1871)  stands  proba- 
bly unrivalled  among  novelists.  Descended 
on  his  mother's  side  from  an  old  zeman  family, 
Kalincak  gathered  in  his  books  much  valuable 
material  on  the  manners  and  habits  of  the 
zeman  class  of  people,  now  almost  wholly  Mag- 
yarized.  Restavrdcia  has  been  pronounced 
his  chief  work. 

Janko  Krai  (1 822-1 876)  was  an  eccentric, 
a  "  Bohemian,"  who  preferred  the  companion- 
ship of  shepherds  to  the  chicanery  of  law,  for 


142        THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

which  profession  he  had  been  educated.  His 
lyric  poetry  bears  the  stamp  of  his  roving 
nature  and  erratic  temperament. 

Besides  these,  the  following  writers  and 
versifiers  deserve  to  be  mentioned :  Jacob 
Greichman,  ballad  writer  of  some  note  ;  John 
Matiiska,  remembered  as  the  composer  of 
Nad  Tatrou  sa  bliska  ;  Ladislav  Pauliny,  pas- 
tor, and  uncle  of  William  Pauliny-Toth  (1828- 
1885),  a  bright  satirist  and  humorist;  John 
Francisci,  known  under  the  pseudonym  "  Janko 
Rimavsky  "  ;  Paul  Dobsinsky,  pastor  (1826- 
1877),  an  industrious  compiler  of  folk-tales; 
Peter  Kellner  (pseudonym  "  Zaboj  Hostin- 
sky"  1 823-1 873),  who  professed  to  believe 
that  the  Tatras,  according  to  him  the  birth- 
place of  the  Slavs,  would  yet  astonish  the 
world  by  the  magnitude  of  ideas  to  issue  from 
them;  Nicolas  Dohnany,  a  translator  of  By- 
ron and  Shakespeare ;  Dr.  Charles  Kuzmany 
( 1 806-1 866),  professor  of  theology  and  warm 
friend  of  Kollar  and  Safafik  ;  John  Chalupka, 
pastor  (179 1 -1 871),  the  elder  brother  of  Sam- 
uel Chalupka,  a  popular  dramatist;  Nicholas 
Stephen  Feriencik  (182 5-1 881),  a  productive 
novelist  and  journalist;  John  Palarik  (1822- 
1870),  dramatist. 

Svetozar  Hurban  (pseudonym  "  Vajansk^  "), 


LANGUAGE  AND  LITERATURE      143 

born  in  1847,  is  a  poet,  journalist,  and  writer 
of  the  highest  rank.  The  Tatras  and  the 
Ocean  in  verse  and  Withered  Branch  in  prose 
are  works  of  excellent  merit.  As  editor-in- 
chief  of  the  Ndrodnie  Noviny,  H urban  is  a 
power  among  his  people.  More  than  once  in 
his  life  has  this  redoubtable  champion  been 
struck  down  by  the  brutal  might  of  the  tyrant. 
Paul  Orszagh  (pseudonym  "  Hviezdoslav"), 
born  in  1849,  ls  a  lyric  of  recognized  ability, 
as  is  "  Martin  Kukucin "  (pseudonym  of  Dr. 
Matthew  Bencur),  born  in  i860,  a  novelist. 
Other  contemporary  writers,  whose  names  are 
familiar  to  every  Slovak  reader,  are :  Helen 
Marothy-Soltesz,  Therese  Vansa,  Ludmila 
Podjavorinsky,  Martin  Sladkovic,  Tichomir 
Milkin,  and  J.  Somolicky.  Among  essayists 
and  historical  writers,  Francis  Sasinek,  Paul 
Krizko,  Andrew  Kmet,  Joseph  Holuby, 
Joseph  Skultety,  etc.,  excel.  With  the  name 
of  Stephen  Marcus  Daxner  (1822-1892)  is 
linked  the  authorship  of  the  famous  "  Memo- 
randum." 


SOCIAL  CONDITIONS. 

ILLUSTRATIVE  of  the  national  traits  of 
*  the  motley  population  of  Hungary  is  the 
following  humorous  estimate  found  in  Bielek's 
work  in  German,  published  in  1837  : 

"  The  Magyar  is  proud  and  happy  when  he 

can  ride  a  fine  horse ;  the  Slovak  when  he  can 
talk  familiarly  to  a  person  of  distinction  ;  the 
German  when  he  secures  the  burgomaster's 
staff  of  office ;  the  Rumun  when  twirling  a 
handsomely  carved  cane  ;  the  Little  Russian 
when  he  attains  to  clerical  honors;  the  Jew 
when  renting  landed  property  ;  the  gypsy  when 
parading  in  scarlet  trousers." 

Anecdotes  are  related  of  the  proverbial 
humility  of  the  Slovak,  and  of  the  love  of  fight 
which  again  is  said  to  be  characteristic  of  the 
Magyar.  A  Magyar  peasant  runs  to  a  tavern 
where  a  combat  is  in  progress.  "  Why  don't 
you  take  a  stick  with  you,  Pista  ?"  admonishes 
his  wife.  "It  is  not  necessary,"  replies  Pista, 
"  I  guess  the  man  whom  I  tackle  will  have  a 
stick." 

144 


SOCIAL  CONDITIONS  145 

How  many  Slovaks  there  are  in  Hungary 
is  a  matter  of  speculation.  The  official  count, 
which  is  notoriously  unreliable  and  partial  to 
the  dominant  race,  computed  their  number  at 
2,008,744  in  1900.  A  prominent  attorney  in 
Martin  assured  the  writer  that,  although  no 
one  in  his  native  village  spoke  Magyar,  yet 
every  inhabitant  had  been  returned  in  the  offi- 
cial sheets  as  belonging  to  that  race.  Vam- 
bery's  figure  in  a  recent  work  is  1,800,000. 
Safafik  estimated  the  number  of  his  fellow- 
countrymen  in  1842  at  2,753,ooo.1  Of  this  he 
credited  1,953,000  to  the  Catholics  and  800,- 
000  to  the  Protestants.  Possibly  Safafik  may 
have  been  wrong.  In  1850  the  first  census, 
according  to  nationalities,  was  taken  in  Hun- 
gary, and  this  official  account  gave  to  the 
Slovaks  1,704,000,  or  13  %  of  the  entire  popula- 
tion. The  Magyars  appeared  to  have  4, 1 66,000, 
or  36.9%  of  the  whole.'  Now,  however,  official 
figures  begin  to  puzzle  us,  for  while  in  1900 
the  Magyars  claimed  8,679,014,  or  45.4  %  of 
the  entire  population,  this  being  an  increase 
between  1 850-1900  of  80  %,  the  Slovaks  came 
in  for  2,008,744  in  1900,  or  10.5$  of  the  whole, 
an  increase  of  only  32.6  %  between  1850-1900! 

1  Slovansky  Ndrodopis.  Prague,  1842,  p.  98. 

2  Czoernig's  Ethnographie  Jcr  Ost.  L'ug.  Monarchic-.     Wien,  1S55. 


146        THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

How  is  this  inconsistency  to  be  explained  ? 
The  Slovaks,  with  their  known  fecundity — 
families  of  10-12  children  among  them  being 
nothing  uncommon  —  have  increased  during 
the  last  50  years  only  32.6  %,  while  the  Mag- 
yars, among  whom  large  families  are  rather 
the  exception  than  the  rule,  have  gained  80  % 
during  the  same  period  of  time.  Taking  as  a 
basis  Safank's  computation,  which  is  surely 
nearer  the  truth  than  the  census  of  1850,  and 
deducting  from  it  about  80,000  Slovaks  settled 
in  Moravia  and  elsewhere,  there  should  have 
been  2,673,000  Slovaks  in  1842.  If  the  in- 
crease between  1842- 1900  had  amounted  to 
only  45  %,  or  1,202,850,  Slovaks  should  now 
be  3,875,850  strong.  Every  one  who  has  ever 
travelled  through  northwestern  Hungary  is 
satisfied  beyond  reasonable  doubt  that  the 
official  figures,  quoted  above,  are  inaccurate. 
When  it  is  remembered  that  the  rural  popula- 
tion is  purely  Slovak  ;  and  that,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  the  officials,  school  teachers,  and 
nobility,  the  rank  and  file  of  the  townspeople 
are  of  the  same  nationality,  the  conclusion  is 
irresistible  that  the  real  figure  is  nearer  to 
3,000,000  than  2,000,000.  There  are,  besides, 
colonies  of  Slovaks,  large  and  small,  through- 
out the  whole  kingdom.     Some  of  these  colo- 


SOCIAL  CONDITIONS  147 

nics  date  back  to  the  time  when  the  country, 
laid  waste  and  depopulated  by  the  Turks, 
needed  agriculturists  to  till  it.  The  phrase 
"  a  nation  over  3,000,000  strong-,"  with  which 
we  meet  frequently  in  the  Slovak  press,  must 
not  be  taken  literally,  however.  What  it 
means  is  that  people  of  the  Slovak  blood  num- 
ber 3,000,000.  Naturally  many  of  these,  the 
nobility  and  the  zemans  to  a  man,  having  re- 
nounced their  nationality  can  no  longer  be 
classed  as  Slovaks.  Apropos  of  the  origin  of 
the  nobility,  "  Were  the  lords  all  of  Magyar 
and  the  peasants  altogether  of  Slavic  de- 
scent?" The  mass  of  the  peasantry,  in  gen- 
eral, were  of  the  same  race  as  their  lords.  In 
the  Slovak  counties  they  were  Slovak  ;  in  the 
Magyar  counties  of  the  centre,  they  were 
Magyars  ;  and  in  Croatia  and  Slavonia  they 
were  of  that  nationality. 

In  Bacs,  Bodrog  and  Szerem  are  large  and 
compact  settlements  of  "  Rusnaks,"  or  Little 
Russians,  who  came  to  Hungary  between  the 
fourteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries.  These 
Rusnaks  mix  with  the  Slovaks  in  the  east,  and 
further  east  they  replace  them  entirely.  They 
number  about  half  a  million.  Slovaks  by  speech 
and  Orthodox  Russians  in  creed,  these  Rus- 
naks have  been  for  years  a  bone  of  contention 


148        THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

between  Slovak  and  Russian  etymologists, 
both  contending  parties  claiming  them  as  their 
own.  Safafik  was  of  the  opinion  that  there 
were  only  Protestant  Slovaks  and  Catholic 
Slovaks.  Of  Orthodox  Slovaks — and  the  Rus- 
naks  all  profess  that  faith — he  would  hear 
nothing.  It  was  his  judgment  that  the  Rus- 
naks  are  what  their  name  betrays  them  to  be, 
Russians. 

An    official    publication    describes    the    Slo- 
vaks as 

"  generally  of  a  lofty  stature ;  well  built, 
with  broad  faces  and  prominent  cheekbones. 
For  the  most  part  they  let  their  light  hair 
grow  long,  but  do  not  wear  beards  or  mus- 
taches. Their  dress  of  white  baize  is  comple- 
ted by  a  broad  leathern  girdle,  a  broad-brimmed 
hat,  and  sandals.  Their  dwellings  are  frail. 
They  are  simple,  religious,  humble  and  quiet, 
but  when  heated,  quarrelsome.  Their  songs 
are  as  a  rule  of  a  melancholy  character.  They 
do  any  kind  of  work  and  are  industrious.  By 
preference  they  occupy  themselves  with  the 
breeding  of  cattle  and  sheep  and  go  down  to 
the  Great  Plain  to  reap  the  harvest.  They 
are  very  skilful  in  domestic  manufactures. 
Their  women  are  celebrated  for  their  em- 
broideries." 

"  From  immemorial  times  the  Slovaks  were 
a    nation    of  peasants    and    shepherds,"    says 


SOCIAL  CONDITIONS  149 

Ziga  Pauliny-T6th.  "  For  these  two  vocations 
the  love  of  our  people  is  deep  rooted  and, 
although  they  may  be  taught  other  callings, 
they  are  happiest  when  ploughing,  sowing  and 
reaping. 

"  Generally  the  soil  is  poor,  and  with  the 
exception  of  the  Lower  Trencin  and  the  south- 
ern portion  of  Nitra  and  Pressburg,  where 
the  country  is  rich,  nowhere  in  Slovakland  is 
the  soil  fertile  enough  to  support  the  farmer  in 
independence.  Of  the  many  evils  which  still 
weigh  down  our  peasantry,"  continues  Pauliny- 
Toth  "  one  is  illiteracy.  Before  the  fifties  the 
people  were,  with  some  exceptions,  wholly  illit- 
erate. At  the  present  time  there  are  51.44  % 
in  Hungary  unable  to  read  or  write.  In  the 
twelve  Slovak  counties  the  percentage  of  illit- 
erates is  somewhat  below  the  average  obtaining 
in  the  kingdom,  except  in  the  counties  of 
Trencin,  Zemplin,  Sarys  and  Ung,  where  it 
rises  a  trifle  above.  Still,  the  fact  remains 
that  over  one  half  our  population  is  unlettered." 

A  grave  fault  of  the  small  farmer  is  his  un- 
progressiveness.  He  insists  on  cultivating  his 
fields  in  pretty  nearly  the  same  primitive  fash- 
ion as  his  father  and  grandfather  before  him. 
Naturally  the  amount  of  the  crops  corresponds 
to  the  methods  employed.  Again,  the  soil  is 
not  sufficiently  responsive.  To  this  latter  cir- 
cumstance is  probably  due  most  of  the  wretch- 


i5o        THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

edness  with  which  one  meets  in  Slovakland. 
In  passing  through  the  country  the  traveller  is 
constantly  reminded  of  the  hills  of  Utah  and 
Colorado.     The  woodlands  which  are  unfit  for 
cultivation  will  average  1 5  $  throughout,  while 
in  Turec  the  average  rises  to  33  %  in  Orava  to 
30$,  Liptov  41  %,  Zvolen  32  %  Novohrad  26$, 
Gemer  47  %  Spis  37  %  and  Sarys  43  %    In  Orava 
County  there  are  2761  farms  that  average  from 
1  to  5  acres  of  land  of  which  only  about  two- 
thirds  is  arable.     One  village  in  that  county 
bears  the  highly  suggestive  name  of  Hladovka 
— Hungerville.     With  a  tiny  patch  of  ground 
that  yields  hardly  anything  else  than  oats  and 
potatoes — in  the  north  part  of  Orava,  where 
freezing   weather   comes    early,   potatoes   are 
often  due  from  underneath  the  snow — it  is  as- 
tonishing  how  the  highland  peasant  manages 
to  pay  his  taxes.     There  is  a  ground  tax,  the 
per  capita  tax,  communal  assessment,  travelling 
tax,  ecclesiastical  dues,   notarial  tax,  midwife 
tax,  etc.     A  typical  case  of  over-taxation  :     A 
poor  mountaineer  in  a  hamlet  in  Turec,  with 
real  and  personal  property  valued  at  180  florins, 
which  is  equivalent  to  $72,  was  taxed  with  18 
florins  per  year  ! 

Among  the  most  lovable  traits  of  the  people 
is   their  love   of  music.       No  less   than   5000 


SOCIAL  CONDITIONS  151 

folk  songs  were  collected  in  the  neighboring 
Margravate  of  Moravia,  and  it  is  claimed  that 
fully  one  half  of  these,  some  of  them  admitted 
to  be  tonal  gems  and  by  far  the  best  specimens 
in  the  collection,  are  the  product  of  Slovak  in- 
ventiveness. In  the  more  modern  airs  the 
temperament  of  the  gypsy  and  Magyar  music 
is  plainly  discernible.  But,  on  the  whole,  Slo- 
vak songs  have  retained  the  rugged  simplicity 
of  the  folk  song.  That  they  are  very  old  is 
plain,  although  Milan  Lichard  believes  that 
there  is  no  warrant  for  the  assertion,  repeated 
by  certain  enthusiasts,  that  some  of  the  songs 
date  back  to  pagan  times.  Almost  without 
exception,  the  folk  songs  are  written  in  a  minor 
key,  this  giving  them  a  sad  and  melancholy 
coloring,  quite  in  keeping  with  the  unhappy  lot 
of  the  people. 

Sheep  farming  is  carried  on  extensively  and 
with  excellent  results.  Usually  sheep  are  raised 
on  shares  by  the  communes.  In  the  spring- 
time the  "baca"  or  shepherd-in-chief  takes  his 
charge  to  the  pasture  on  the  elevated  table 
lands,  caring  for  them  there  with  his  assistants 
till  the  autumn,  when  the  sheep  are  returned 
to  their  respective  owners.  In  the  hills  the 
sheep  are  lambed,  shorn  of  wool,  and  milked. 
The  milk  is  used  in  the  making  of  "brindza," 


152        THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

a  sharp-tasting,  strong-flavored  cheese  which 
finds  a  ready  market  in  central  European  coun- 
tries. The  profit  which  arises  at  the  end  of 
the  season  is  divided  equitably  among  the 
owners.  Cattle  breeding  yields  a  handsome 
revenue  to  the  farmer.  The  census  taker 
found  within  the  Slovak  territory  in  1898 
1,059,529  head  of  cattle,  249,818  horses,  3452 
donkeys,  159  mules,  22,724  goats,  639,297  hogs, 
1,311,777  sheep,  3,099,606  fowl,  and  117,403 
beehives. 

The  most  pretentious  house  in  every  hamlet 
is  invariably  the  property  of  a  zeman  family. 
The  villagers  call  them  residences.  A  lower 
class  of  nobility,  these  zemans  used  to  be  a 
power  in  the  land  until  the  serfs  were  liber- 
ated. Kossuth  was  descended  on  his  mother's 
side  from  a  Slovak  zeman  family.  Exempt 
from  taxation  and  enjoying  the  fruit  of  forced 
labor,  the  zemans  lived  for  centuries  in  ease 
and  affluence.  The  moment  serfage  was  abol- 
ished the  zemans  found  themselves  on  the 
decline.  Slowly  but  surely  their  estates  are 
now  passing  in  the  ownership  of  enterprising 
Semites,  while  the  "  Most  Powerful  Lords,"  as 
the  humble  peasant  was  wont  to  entitle  them, 
are  glad  to  earn  their  living  as  minor  govern- 
ment officials.     Obeying  the   law   which   has 


SOCIAL  CONDITIONS  153 

guided  the  nobles  in  all  ages  and  in  all  coun- 
tries, they  all  have  joined  the  ruling  element 
in  Hungary.  The  Slovak  zemans  no  longer 
exist. 

Two  festering  sores  sap  the  vitality  of  the 
unsophisticated  highlander — drink  and  usury. 
Nowhere  in  the  country  have  these  terrible 
social  evils  taken  such  a  firm  grip  as  here  in 
the  mountains,  "  where  rock  begins  and  bread 
ceases." 

It  is  true  that  the  foremost  mortgage  banks 
lend  money  at  a  moderately  low  rate  of  inter- 
est, providing  the  borrower  will  take,  say  20,000 
Austrian  crowns.  But  of  what  advantage  is 
the  Hypothecary  Bank  at  Budapest  to  the 
small  farmer?  He  is  compelled  to  borrow 
from  a  local  banking  institution,  and  at  what 
cost !  Including  commissions  and  disburse- 
ments charged  the  interest  will  amount  to  J-8 
%  and  not  infrequently  to  14  %.  On  short 
loans  the  borrower  has  to  pay  as  much  as  50  %. 
A  savings  bank  in  Slovakland  with  a  capital  of 
60,000  cr.,  reserve  fund  of  18,000  cr.,  and  de- 
posits amounting  to  160,000  cr.,  cleared  an 
annual  profit  of  2  2,000  cr.  The  average  profit 
of  banks  in  1894  was  said  to  be  13.58  %  on  the 
capital  invested  and  in  1888  29.56  %. 

Every  Slovak  of  intelligence  deplores  the 


154        THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

drink  habit  among  his  people,  and  time  and 
again  appeals  have  been  made  in  the  newspa- 
pers and  otherwise  to  regulate  the  sale  of 
liquor  in  the  highlands  —  apparently  all  to  no 
purpose.  The  sellers  are  always  successful 
in  blocking  every  attempt  at  reform.  Why 
should  these  pest  dens  continue  their  nefarious 
trade  unrestricted  ?  An  alarming  feature  of 
the  rum  business  is  that  in  ninety  cases  out  of 
a  hundred  the  rum  dealer  is  apt  to  be  a  money 
lender  to  the  poor  country  folks,  which  of 
course  implies  that  he  is  a  heartless  usurer. 
Some  years  ago  the  Catholic  clergy,  seeing 
what  ravages  the  drink  habit  was  making 
among  their  flock,  started  to  organize  temper- 
ance societies  to  which  was  given  the  name  of 
rosaries.  Singularly  enough,  the  government 
promptly  suppressed  the  rosary  organizations 
on  the  charge  that  they  fostered  panslavism. 
It  was  noted  at  the  time  that  the  chief  wit- 
nesses against  the  leaders  of  the  rosaries  were 
the  rum  sellers. 

Emigration  from  Slovakland  is  assuming 
such  alarming  proportions  that  it  threatens  to 
depopulate  it.  "  Certain  people  would  make 
the  public  believe,"  remarks  Joseph  L.  Holuby, 
"  that  this  emigration  in  masses  is  due  to  for- 
cible Magyarization.      That  is  an  error.     The 


SOCIAL  CONDITIONS  15s 

hungry  man  is  not  concerned  with  gram- 
mars, be  they  Magyar  or  Slovak.  What  he 
wants  is  bread.  To  him  the  quarrel  between 
his  nation  and  the  Magyars  is,  after  all,  of 
secondary  importance.  He  seeks  work.  It  is 
no  secret  that  people  emigrate  from  districts 
where  Magyars  are  all  but  unknown."  In 
the  two  decades  between  1 880-1900,  it  is 
computed,  emigration  from  Hungary  was  as 
follows  : 

Via  Hungary 372,979 

"     Antwerp 87,609 

"     Genoa 9,5°! 

470,089 

How  many  of  these  are  to  be  credited  to 
Slovaks  ?  Roland  Hegedus,  an  authority  on 
the  subject  of  emigration  from  Hungary,  esti- 
mated the  number  of  American  Slovaks  at 
160,000-200,000,  in  1899.  As  the  onrush  of 
immigration  to  the  United  States  has  been 
especially  great  within  the  past  five  years,  it 
is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  at  the  present 
time  the  United  States  are  the  home  of  some 
400,000  Slovaks. 

Already  the  exodus  of  so  many  people  be- 
gins to  disturb  local  economic  conditions.  For 
example,  employers  are  heard  to  complain  of 


156        THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

lack  of  working  men.  Wages  have  gone  up. 
The  price  of  land  has  risen.  A  few  figures 
will  show  what  kind  of  material  America  is 
getting  from  Slovakland.  During  1 869-1 890 
the  county  of  Spis  had  lost  by  emigration 
14^  of  youths  from  twenty  to  twenty-five  years 
of  age,  the  county  of  Sarys  34  %.  Of  men 
whose  ages  varied  from  twenty-six  to  thirty 
years,  Spis  lost  31  %,  Sarys  44$,  Abauj  Torna 
22  %  and  Zemplin  16  %.  Owing  to  emigra- 
tion the  old  ratio  of  100  men  to  103  women, 
heretofore  prevalent,  has  undergone  a  remark- 
able change.  In  1890  there  were,  as  against 
100  males,  1 1 5  females  in  Spis,  1 16  in  Sarys,  and 
115  in  Abauj  Torna.  In  many  instances  land 
values  have  arisen  100  %  because  of  the  influx 
of  American  money  earned  in  the  coal  fields 
of  Pennsylvania.  The  postal  bank  at  Kosice, 
which  is  the  distributing  centre  for  the  north- 
eastern counties,  received  in  1896  six  and 
one  half  millions  of  florins  in  remittances  from 
America.  The  village  of  Butka  in  Zemplin, 
with  1 156  Slovak  inhabitants,  was  the  grateful 
recipient  in  ten  years  of  351,435  florins  from 
across  the  ocean.1 

To  regulate  "  wanton  "  emigration  a  special 

1  Most  of  the  figures  adduced  here  are  taken  from  Dr.  Emil  Sto- 
dnla's  Prispevok  ku  Statistike  Slovcnska,  1902. 


SOCIAL  CONDITIONS  157 

law  was  enacted  in  1903.  The  state  promised 
to  keep  a  watchful  eye  over  its  subjects  even 
beyond  the  seas  "  in  their  own  interest  and  for 
the  good  of  the  State."  Pithily  a  newspaper 
characterized  this  determination  of  the  Hun- 
garian Government  to  go  into  the  steamship- 
ticket  business  :  "  Why  do  people  leave  their 
native  country  ?  Clearly  because  they  are  being 
neglected  by  the  home  government.  Suddenly 
the  state,  which  has  done  nothing  for  them 
while  in  Hungary,  becomes  solicitous  about 
their  well-being,  promising  to  watch  over  and 
protect  them  after  they  have  taken  leave  of 
their  homes." 

What  is  the  national  dress  of  the  Slovaks  ? 
This  is  hard  to  answer.  One  might  almost 
say  that  there  are  as  many  distinct  styles  as 
there  are  counties.  Near  industrial  centres 
the  handsome  and  striking  national  dress  has 
partly  disappeared  ;  but  as  industries  are  an 
exception  and  agriculture  the  rule  in  the  high- 
lands, national  costumes  are  still  worn  in  abun- 
dance. The  adolescent  youth,  the  married 
couple,  the  old  folks,  each  class  affects  a  garb 
suited  to  its  respective  fancies  or  station  in 
life.  Dresses  differing  either  in  material  or 
pattern  are  worn  at  such  functions  as  weddings, 
funerals,  dances,  etc. 


158        THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

Commonly,  the  men  are  smooth-shaven  and 
wear  long  hair.  The  younger  set,  and  par- 
ticularly those  who  have  served  in  the  army, 
cut  their  hair  short.  Near  the  boundary  line, 
where  they  mix  with  the  Magyars,  both  young 
and  old  are  partial  to  mustaches.  In  the 
matter  of  trousers  the  Slovak  tailor  is  as 
whimsical  as  his  Magyar  brother-in-law.  While 
in  certain  districts  fashion  seems  to  dictate 
tight-fitting  trousers,  in  other  places  again  the 
pantaloons  that  are  worn  attain  to  the  propor- 
tion of  a  bifurcated  skirt.  The  same  appears 
to  be  the  case  with  hats. 

The  waistcoat  only  covers  the  chest  and 
shoulder-blades.  It  is  sleeveless.  When  the 
weather  is  cold  it  may  be  exchanged  for  a 
fur-lined  "kamisol."  As  for  the  top  coat,  its 
nomenclature  is  as  varied  as  the  style  in  which 
makers  cut  it.  "  Halena"  is  a  popular  name, 
meaning  literally  a  wrap,  though  "huna"  is 
another  well-known  designation  for  a  surtout. 
Of  light,  black,  brown,  or  gray  cloth,  the  halena 
may  be  either  short,  to  the  belt-line,  or  if  fancy 
so  dictates,  long,  to  the  knees.  Short  or  long, 
all  halenas  are  appropriately  braided  on  the 
collar,  in  the  centre  of  the  back,  in  front,  and 
in  the  corners  of  the  skirt.  No  finery  is  com- 
plete without  needlework,   the   designs   being 


SOCIAL  CONDITIONS  159 

lineal,  geometrical,  figurative,  and  floral.  Of 
embroidery  men  seem  to  be  as  fond  as  women, 
displaying  it  generously  on  their  shirt  collars 
and  sleeves  and  on  waistcoats,  "lajblik." 
When  the  latter  article  is  made  of  cloth,  it  is 
sure  to  be  ornamented  with  rows  of  fancy 
buttons,  in  lieu  of  embroidery.  A  loose  cloak 
is  worn  over  the  shoulders.  In  the  higher 
altitudes  a  fur  coat  has  been  found  to  be  an 
indispensable  garment,  and  the  sagacious  moun- 
taineer has  a  saying  :  "  Until  the  Easter  holi- 
days keep  the  sheepskin  on  ;  after  them  do  not 
let  it  go."  "  Krpce,"  which  is  a  moccasin-like 
sandal  fastened  to  the  foot  with  thongs,  was 
until  recent  years  universally  worn.  The  pride 
of  every  village  gallant  (among  Moravian  Slo- 
vaks) is  a  hat  cockade,  "  pierko  "  or  "  kosirek," 
made  of  plumes  or  feathers — cock  and  heron 
feathers  most  commonly.  To  knock  down 
one's  "kosirek"  would  be  an  insult  that  no 
village  beau  could  let  go  unpunished. 

It  is  customary  for  girls  to  go  bareheaded 
and  to  braid  their  hair,  except  in  Upper 
Trencin  and  Lower  Nitra.  "Cepec,"  a  sort  of 
bonnet,  is  the  distinguishing  head-gear  of  mar- 
ried women.  Among  the  well-to-do  peasants 
down  south,  where  the  soil  is  rich,  it  is  not  un- 
common for  a  bride  to  have  in  her  wardrobe 


160       THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

as  many  as  sixty  or  eighty  bonnets  or  "parts," 
a  diadem-like  head  ornament  with  ribbons 
attached  to  it  at  the  back,  thirty  detachable 
embroidered  sleeves,  thirty  petticoats,  etc.  A 
thoughtful  mother  will  begin  to  work  on  the 
trousseau  of  her  daughter  the  year  of  her 
birth,  so  that  most  of  the  apparel  may  be 
complete  by  the  time  she  arrives  at  maturity. 
Usually  an  outfit  like  that  will  do  for  the  life- 
time of  the  woman,  passing  by  inheritance 
to  children  and  grandchildren,  like  jewelry  in 
other  countries. 

First  to  the  body  comes  the  "  rubac "  or 
chemise,  homespun  of  hemp  or  flax.  Cloth 
skirts  are  in  universal  favor,  the  prevalent  tints 
being  blue,  black,  and  green.  In  the  summer- 
time, cloth  skirts  are  replaced  by  linen  "let- 
nica."  In  some  counties  skirts  of  customary 
length  are  worn ;  in  others  again,  as  in  Nitra 
and  Pressburg,  they  barely  reach  to  the  knees. 
Attached  to  the  skirt  is  the  waist,  or  "  zivotok," 
"brucel,"  or  "kordulka,"  as  it  is  alternately 
called.  The  "  lajblik,"  which  corresponds  to  the 
bodice,  is  a  separate  garment.  Over  the  skirt 
is  worn  a  tunic  or  "  fertuch,"  as  it  is  called. 
On  this  piece  is  lavished  the  daintiest  em- 
broidery. In  some  districts  the  head  is  covered 
with  a  "  polka,"  this  being  a  strip  of  white  linen, 


SOCIAL  CONDITIONS  161 

muslin,  or  chiffon  about  nine  feet  in  length, 
which  is  wound  around  the  head  like  a  tur- 
ban and  tied  behind,  permitting  the  ends,  also 
highly  embroidered,  to  be  seen  to  advantage. 
The  feet  are  encased  in  "  cizma,"  top  boots. 
Justly  famous  is  the  needlework  of  Slovak 
women ;  chemises,  guimps,  bodices,  cravats, 
aprons,  and  sleeves,  the  latter  always  puffed  to 
the  elbow  and  flowing, — all  these  articles  being 
rich  with  embroidery. 

A  familiar  figure  on  every  European  high- 
way is  the  Slovak  tinker.  Having  seen  him 
once,  you  will  always  recognize  him  by  his 
picturesque  hat,  long-hair,  and  mantle.  With 
rolls  of  wire  and  mouse-traps  slung  over  his 
back,  the  tinker  is  a  tireless  trotter  who  feels 
himself  at  home  everywhere,  without,  however, 
losing  his  national  type.  Almost  all  the  tin- 
kers come  from  the  district  traversed  by  the 
river  Kysuca,  opposite  the  Silesian  frontier.  In 
the  town  of  Caca  (Csacza),  where  they  have 
their  rendezvous,  you  may  hear  these  tinkers 
conversing  together  in  tolerably  good  English, 
French,  German,  and  Russian,  besides  minor 
European  tongues.  House  peddling  supports 
hundreds  of  families  who  are  attached  to  the 
barren  districts.  There  are  travelling  vendors 
of  wicker-ware,  of  hats,  embroideries,  spices, 


1 62        THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

and  ornamental  knick-knacks,  of  cloth  and  cali- 
co prints,  of  mouse-traps,  etc.  As  raftsmen 
and  shingle  makers,  Slovak  skill  is  much  ap- 
preciated in  the  lumber  regions.  In  the  har- 
vest time  they  go  down  to  the  great  wheat  belt 
to  hire  themselves  as  farm  laborers.  There  is 
depressing  poverty  everywhere  ;  but  here  in 
the  sub-Carpathian  cliffs  it  is  crushing.  Ex- 
treme poverty  drives  thousands  to  seek  a  liveli- 
hood in  other  pursuits  than  agriculture.  In 
winter  the  staple  food  of  the  peasantry  is  cab- 
bage and  potatoes ;  this  is  especially  true  in 
upper  Trencin  County. 

It  is  estimated  that  there  live  in  Pest,  the 
capital,  25,000  Slovaks.  Another  city  with  a 
large  Slovak  population  is  Csaba,  in  the  county 
of  the  same  name,  with  some  30,000  inhabitants. 
Yet  neither  Pest  nor  Csaba,  nor  yet  Nitra,  the 
one-time  seat  of  Svatopluk's  kingdom,  holds  the 
same  place  in  the  affection  of  the  Slovaks  as 
Turciansk^  Sv.  Martin  (Turocz  Szt.  Marton), 
a  little  town  of  some  3000  people,  on  the  river 
Turec,  which  is  an  affluent  of  the  Vah.  Here, 
high  up  in  the  mountains,  where  the  winters 
are  long  and  severe,  the  Slovaks  have  estab- 
lished their  national  centre.  In  the  early 
sixties  the  municipality  of  Martin,  which  was 
then  a  village  possessing  no  advantage  or  at- 


SOCIAL  CONDITIONS  163 

traction  over  other  country  places,  excepting 
the  patriotism  of  its  citizens,  offered  its  hos- 
pitality to  the  "  Matica  Slovenska."  That 
representative  body  was  being  persecuted  by 
the  government.  The  leaders  of  the  Matica 
were  so  touched  by  the  generous  offer  that 
Martin  was  then  and  there  voted  the  future 
capital  of  the  nation.  In  June,  1861,  a  memo- 
rable meeting  was  held  there  at  which  the  dele- 
gates present  adopted  the  "  Memorandum,"  a 
"  Slovak  Bill  of  Rights."  Stephen  Daxner 
drafted  the  document.  Since  1 86 1 ,  Martin  has 
witnessed  all  or  almost  all  the  popular  assem- 
blies held.  Here  stands  the  "  Dom,"  contain- 
ing both  an  interesting  museum  and  a  library. 
Here  some  of  the  principal  newspapers  are 
printed  and  published,  like  the  Ndrodnie  No- 
viny,  the  review  Slovenskt  Pohlady,  etc.;  here 
theatrical  performances  are  given.  The  "  Spe- 
vokol,"  a  singing  society,  and  "  Zivena,"  the 
foremost  woman's  society,  have  their  head- 
quarters here.  Likewise  the  "Tatra  Bank" 
is  established  in  Martin.  Annually,  in  the 
month  of  August,  a  kind  of  national  reunion 
takes  place  in  the  diminutive  capital.  Some- 
how or  other  a  visitor  to  Martin  feels  that  a 
tactical  blunder  has  been  made  in  selecting  so 
small  a  place  for  the  centre  of  an  important 


164        THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

mission  work.  A  just  cause  will  often  fail,  or, 
if  not  that,  at  least  suffer,  for  lack  of  a  suitable 
environment. 

Discouraging,  if  not  critical,  is  the  situation 
in  regard  to  schools.  Sad  to  say,  there  is  not 
a  single  higher  school  in  St.  Stephen's  king- 
dom, public  or  sectarian,  where  Slovak  is  either 
taught  as  a  subject  or  used  as  a  medium  of 
instruction.  Even  the  university  at  Pest  is 
closed  to  the  Slovak  language,  although  it 
supports  a  chair  of  Croatian  and  has  promised 
to  erect  one  of  Old  Slavic  (obsolete).  Is  it 
Svatopluk's  ghost  again  ?  Or  is  it  a  question 
of  utility  ?  Hardly  that.  Any  tinker  will  tell 
you  that  with  his  despised  Slovak  tongue  he 
can  travel  over  a  vast  territory  in  Europe  and 
make  himself  understood,  while  with  Magyar 
he  is  utterly  lost  the  moment  he  crosses  the 
boundary  of  the  fatherland. 

Elementary  schools  are  of  several  kinds : 
confessional  or  sectarian,  state,  and  communal. 
In  the  1 6  Slovak  counties  there  were  in  1899 
596  Protestant  (Augsburg)  schools,  351  Helve- 
tian, 2014  Catholic,  410  Russian  Orthodox, 
1 1 7  Jewish,  342  state,  190  communal,  69  mixed. 
Divided  by  the  language  which  is  used  in 
teaching,  519  were  Slovak,  35  Russian,  2076 
Magyar,  6  German,  11 89  Slovak-Magyar,  192 


SOCIAL  CONDITIONS  165 

Russian-Magyar,  117  German-Magyar.  Of 
the  teachers  16  %  could  not  show  their  training 
certificates,  being  by  occupation  agriculturists 
and  mechanics. 

Slovakland  supports  33  gymnasia,  6  real 
schools,  16  pedagogical  institutes,  2  Protestant 
theological  schools,  5  Catholic  and  1  Russian 
Orthodox  seminaries,  several  convents,  and 
about  1 40  trade  schools  and  commercial  schools, 
but  in  all  of  these  instruction  is  in  Magyar. 
Students  are  forbidden  to  converse  in  Slovak 
either  in  or  out  of  school.  This  rule  is  strictly 
enforced,  non-compliance  therewith  being  pun- 
ished with  expulsion  for  panslavism.  To  read 
a  Slovak  book  or  a  newspaper  is  a  still  graver 
offence,  and  teachers  will  not  hesitate  to  go 
through  the  student's  trunk  and  effects  in 
search  of  the  interdicted  literature. 

Six  Catholic  bishoprics  attend  to  the  spirit- 
ual needs  of  the  faithful  in  the  highlands, 
yet  not  one  incumbent  is  a  Slovak.  Formerly 
there  were  Slovak  libraries  in  Catholic  semina- 
ries, but  the  ruthless  hand  of  the  oppressor  has 
scattered  every  one  of  them  to  the  winds. 

An  important  personage  in  every  commune 
is  the  "  notary,"  whose  office  corresponds  some- 
what to  that  of  the  city  clerk  in  our  Western 
States.     One  and  all  of  these  notaries  are  un- 


1 66        THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

compromising  apostles  of  Magyarization.  The 
mayor  who  attaches  his  signature  to  Magyar 
official  documents,  which  he  does  not  under- 
stand, is  a  helpless  tool  of  the  notary.  The 
village  has  to  do  the  notary's  bidding.  In 
many  instances  he  is  the  local  postmaster,  and 
keeps  a  record  of  births,  marriages,  and  deaths. 
The  notary,  by  reason  of  his  official  position, 
possesses  information  within  reach  of  no  other 
inhabitant  in  the  place.  Nothing  escapes  him. 
He  knows  accurately  what  newspapers  and 
books  you  read,  whether  you  order  your  goods 
from  "patriotic"  or  Slavonian  firms.  The 
local  priests  and  teachers,  if  they  be  Slovaks, 
must  be  on  guard  before  the  notary,  knowing 
that  he  watches  and  reports  their  every  action. 
Even  the  butcher,  the  innkeeper,  and  the  tailor 
find  it  profitable  to  court  the  notary's  favor. 
Elections  without  his  assistance  or  interfer- 
ence are  unthinkable. 

Only  one  kind  of  Slovak  reading  matter 
meets  the  gracious  pardon  of  the  mighty  no- 
tary. It  is  the  Vlast  a  Svet  and  Slovens ke 
Noviny,  the  two  most  widely  circulated  Slo- 
vak publications,  but  with  a  Magyar  tendency. 
Slovakland  is  called  systematically  the  "  High- 
lands" in  these  papers;  Slovaks,  "High- 
landers."    These  two  worthy  journals  publish 


SOCIAL  CONDITIONS  167 

excerpts  from  Magyar  literature  ;  they  print 
the  pictures  of  ministers  from  time  to  time — 
but  Slovak  authors  and  their  productions  are 
under  ban  in  their  columns. 

In  1880  a  society  was  established,  having 
for  its  main  object  the  Magyarization  of  proper 
names.  Thousands  of  Slovaks  have  for  divers 
reasons  changed  their  old-time  patronymics. 

In  1898  a  law  was  created  whereby  non- 
Magyar  towns  and  villages  shall  assume  Mag- 
yar names.  Communes,  says  this  law,  can 
have  but  one  official  name,  z.  e.,  Magyar. 
This  name  shall  be  designated  by  the  Ministry 
of  the  Interior. 

Justice  is  administered  only  in  Magyar,  not- 
withstanding the  plain  language  of  the  "  Law 
of  Nationalities."  Attorneys  may  not  plead  in 
Slovak.  Government  officials,  the  clergy,  and 
teachers  are  sure  of  promotion  if  they  Mag- 
yarize  ostentatiously. 

In  the  railway,  postal,  and  telegraph  service, 
Slovak  is  studiously  suppressed,  and  you  will 
not  find  a  railway  or  postal  guide,  manual, 
notice,  or  map  containing  one  sentence  in  that 
language.  No  one  ever  thinks  of  appointing 
an  official  to  a  position  in  the  highlands  be- 
cause of  his  knowledge  of  Slovak.  On  the 
contrary,  officials  will  openly  deny  a  knowledge 


1 68        THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

of  Slovak,  for  fear  of  being  taken  for  panslavs. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  you  may  be  refused  a  rail- 
road ticket  if  you  ask  for  it  in  the  language  of 
Svatopluk. 

In  some  towns,  having  pure  Slovak  popu- 
lation, you  may  see  none  but  Magyar  signs 
above  shops  and  stores.  A  mechanic  will  hang 
out  a  Magyar  sign  above  his  workroom,  not 
because  he  is  forced  by  law  to  do  so,  but  be- 
cause a  Slovak  sign  would  be  looked  upon  as 
a  provocation  involving  the  sure  loss  of  the 
patronage  of  the  notary,  the  forester,  and  the 
rest  of  the  local  dignitaries.  Besides,  it  is  a 
matter  of  pride  with  every  notary  to  have  as 
few  of  these  objectionable  signs  in  "  their " 
villages  as  possible. 


MAGYAR  BROTHERS-IN-LAW. 

IN  their  vernacular  the  Magyars  call  Hungary 
"  Magyarorszag,"  or,  literally,  "  Magyar- 
land."  Is  Hungary  the  land  of  somebody 
else,  too?  Certainly  not,  say  the  Magyars.  And 
herein  may  be  found  the  key  to  the  whole  situa- 
tion, a  situation  very  perplexing  indeed,  when  it 
is  considered  that  the  Magyar  element  consti- 
tutes hardly  one  half  of  the  entire  population 
of  the  country.  Of  late  it  is  contended  that 
the  fatherland  can  be  neither  great  nor  happy 
unless  all  the  inhabitants  are  Magyarized. 
Szechenyi,  the  great  patriot,  it  is  pointed  out, 
could  have  had  nothing  else  in  mind  when  he 
declared  :  "  There  are  many  who  think  that 
Hungary  has  been.  For  my  part,  I  like  to 
think  that  Hungary  shall  be." 

The  year  when  the  Magyars  first  set  foot 
on  the  soil  of  Hungary  may  never  be  known. 
Writers  caution  us  not  to  accept  too  readily 
the  many  stories  and  legends  which  have  been 
woven  around  the  early  doings  of  these  Tu- 
ranians by  ingenious  native  historians.       We 

169 


170       THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

are  assured  on  good  authority  that  Arpdd 
never  existed  ;  that  it  is  not  the  name  of  a 
person,  signifying,  as  it  does,  a  rank.  Almos 
likewise  is  said  to  be  a  mythical  hero.  The  con- 
gress at  Pusztaszeri  was  never  held,  and  hence 
no  covenant  was  entered  into  there.  Similarly 
the  election  of  early  dukes  should  be  relegated 
to  the  realm  of  fables.1  What  battles  the  Mag- 
yars  fought  during  the  first  decades  of  their 
occupation  of  Hungary,  and  with  whom,  is 
equally  uncertain.  No  ray  of  light  glimmers 
through  the  darkness  which  enshrouds  the 
happenings  of  those  distant  days.  The  first 
authentic  account  that  we  have  of  them  is 
that  they  assisted  the  Germans,  in  907,  at  the 
battle  of  Pressburg,  where  Svatopluk's  Great 
Moravian  Kingdom  was  destroyed.  After 
this,  driving  the  Slavonians  north  and  south, 
the  Magyars  seized  the  fertile  plains  of  the  in- 
terior, the  Alfold,  which  they  have  regarded  as 
their  favorite  home  ever  since. 

"Who  came  first,  Magyars  or  Slovaks?" 
This  is  a  vexatious  chapter  in  Hungarian  his- 
tory. "  It  is  of  utmost  importance  to  know," 
remarks  a  Magyar  writer  (Volf),  "  what  peo- 
ple, if  any,  have  a  better  claim  to  priority  in 
Hungary  than  we.     The  Germans,  Croatians, 

'Julius  Botto,  in  the  Slovenski  Pohlady,  part  12,  xv.  (1895). 


MAGYAR  BROTHERS-IN-LAW         i;i 

Servians,  Russians,  and  Rumuns  all  came  later 
than  we  Magyars,  some  of  them  even  settling 
here  quite  recently.  As  far  as  the  Armenians, 
Greeks,  and  Bulgarians,  and  other  minor 
nationalities  are  concerned,  that  is  a  matter 
that  hardly  merits  consideration.  We  also 
possess  information  bearing  on  the  colonies  of 
Slovenes,  Bohemians,  Moravians,  and  Slovaks. 
The  only  moot  point  is,  whether  the  Slovenes 
and  Slovaks  of  our  times,  or  whatever  is  left 
of  them,  are  descended  in  a  direct  line  from 
the  people  who  constituted  the  Great  Mora- 
vian Kingdom  and  hence  can  claim  priority." 
Then  the  author  proceeds  to  answer  his  own 
questions  by  saying  that  the  Magyars  did  not 
find  any  Slovaks  at  the  time  of  the  conquest, 
the  latter  having  migrated  to  Hungary  at  a 
much  later  period  ;  that  the  Slovaks  of  the 
present  day  must  not  be  confounded  with  the 
nation  that  lived  in  the  time  of  Cyril  and 
Methodius  and  King1  Svatopluk  between  the 
rivers  Morava  (March),  Danube,  and  Hron  ; 
that  those  of  them  that  remained  at  the  time 
of  the  conquest  were  soon  assimilated  by  the 
Magyars.  "  Our  Slovaks  of  Upper  Hungary," 
we  read  in  a  work  issued  by  the  Ministry 
of  Commerce,   "  came  much   later,   after    the 

1  Properly  speaking,  "  Prince  "  Svatopluk  and  not  King. 


172       THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

Hussite  wars,  from  Bohemia  and  Moravia,  and 
still  later  from  Galicia." 

Competent  scholars  like  Safafik  settled  the 
question  of  the  ancestry  of  the  Slovaks  a  long 
time  ago,  and  settled  it  for  good.  Still,  Mag- 
yar writers  are  so  persistent  in  repeating  this 
mischievous  invention,  and  it  is  responsible, 
directly  and  indirectly,  for  so  much  abuse  on 
the  part  of  a  certain  class  of  politicians,  who 
affect  to  treat  the  Slovaks  in  their  own  home 
as  colonists,  even  as  foreigners,  that  the  matter 
for  this  reason  demands  elucidation. 

Let  us  see  about  the  contention  of  the  Mag- 
yars, that  they  assimilated  the  Slovaks  soon 
after  the  conquest.  If  we  are  to  believe  their 
own  story,  the  Magyars  came  to  Hungary  at 
the  end  of  the  ninth  century.  Henrik  Marc- 
zali  reasons  that,  as  the  chieftains  usually  went 
to  battle  with  about  20,000 1  horsemen,  his 
people,  on  invading  Hungary,  must  have  been 
250,000  strong  and  numbered,  including  slaves, 
500,000  souls.  Scattered  over  the  vast  area  of 
the  country  between  the  Carpathians  and  the 
river  Sava  and  from  Transylvania  and  Buko- 
vina  on  the  east  to  Austria  proper  on  the  west, 
how  many  Magyars  could  there  have  been  to 

1  Paul  Kri/ko  in  the  Slovenski  Pohlady,  September,  1S9S,  in  an 
article  entitled  "  Home  of  the  Church  Slavic  ami  the  Magyar  Occu- 
pation 


MAGYAR  BROTHERS-IN-LAW         173 

a  square  mile  ?  During  the  fierce  wars  that 
followed  the  conquest  their  ranks  must  have 
been  thinned  perceptibly.  Is  it  believable  that 
the  conquerors  were  in  a  condition  to  absorb 
the  natives,  who  were  presumably  more  numer- 
ous than  they?  Again,  is  it  probable  that  a 
race  inferior  in  culture  could  have  absorbed  a 
superior  race  ?  When  the  Magyars  invaded 
Hungary,  the  Slavonians  and  Germans  were 
permanently  attached  to  the  soil,  cultivating  it. 
Christianity  and  letters  had  already  taken  a 
deep  root  in  the  land.  In  everything,  but  in 
the  art  of  war,  the  indigenous  people  surpassed 
the  newcomers,  who  were  as  yet  nomads.  Con- 
tradict it  as  they  may,  the  truth  is  that  the  Ger- 
mans and  Slavonians  were  the  first  to  teach 
the  Magyars  the  crude  arts  of  western  culture. 
Everywhere  the  influence  of  the  superior  race 
was  manifest.  St.  Stephen,  who  was  crowned 
in  the  year  1000  King  of  Hungary,  organized 
its  administration  in  imitation  of  Slavonian 
state  institutions.  Even  the  titles  of  his  officials, 
"  Nadorispan  "  (Nadvorni  zupan),  "udvarnok" 
(dvornik),  "  ispan  "  (zupan),  he  borrowed  from 
his  Slavonic  neighbors.  Christianity  came  to 
the  Magyars  from  the  same  source.  Slavonic 
priests  surrounded  St.  Stephen's  throne — to 
mention  the  name  of  St.  Vojtech,  Bishop  of 


174       THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 


Prague — and  Magyar  religious  terminology  is 
full  of  Slavisms.  Most  of  the  Magyar  words 
relating  to  agriculture,  field  implements,  plants, 
fishes,  birds,  trade,  house-building,  food,  drink, 
social  life,  the  notions  of  pleasure  and  pain  and 
bodily  ailments  are  either  purely  Slavonic  or 
show  unmistakable  influence  of  that  language. 
In  1830  Safafik  wrote  to  Francis  Palack^: 
"  My  friend,  the  most  ancient  repository  of  our 
Old  Slavic  is  to  be  found  in  Magyar.  You 
may  laugh,  but  it  is  nevertheless  true  that  our 
hairy  ancestors  in  Scythia  and  Sarmatia  used 
to  say  galamb,  kasa,  barat,  instead  of  holub 
(pigeon),  kosa  (scythe),  brat  (brother),  exactly 
as  our  bearded  Magyars  do  nowadays."1 

The  Magyars  could  not  have  assimilated  the 


1  A  small  illustration  of 

how  the  Magyars 

have  borrowed  from 

eir  Slavonian 

neighbors  : 

SLOVAK 

MAGYAR 

ENGLISH 

si  am  a 

szalma 

straw 

seno 

szena 

hay 

brdzda 

barazda 

furrow 

stolar 

asztalos 

cabinet-maker 

masiar 

meszaros 

butcher 

podkova 

patko 

horseshoe 

kovac 

kovacs 

smitli 

stvrtok 

cstltortok 

Thursday 

piatok 

pcntek 

Friday 

milost 

malaszt 

grace 

brana 

borona 

harrow 

oblok 

ablak 

window 

[>ohir 

pohar 

goblet 

MAGYAR  BROTHERS-IN-LAW         175 

ancient  Slovaks,  "  children  of  the  soil  of  whom 
no  one  knew  when  they  came,"  for  the  reason 
that  they  never  colonized  Slovakland.      Relia- 
ble writers  like   Krizko  assure  us  that  in  the 
tenth  and  eleventh  centuries  Magyars  were  all 
but  unknown  in   the  north.     The  few  settle- 
ments they  established  there  disappeared  with- 
out   a    trace,    merging    in    the    dense    native 
population,  like  the  colonies  of  Germans  with 
which  Slovakland  was  dotted  in  the  fourteenth 
and  fifteenth  centuries,  and  which  latter  were 
said  to  have  been  four  times  as  numerous  as 
those  of  the  Magyars.     Can  we  be  persuaded 
to  believe  that  the  Magyars  accomplished  what 
the  Germans,  with  their  superior  organization 
and  Aryan  language  and  incomparably  higher 
culture,  failed  to  do,  to  absorb  the  Slovak  peas- 
ants and  shepherds  ?     The  truth  of  the  matter 
is  that  ever  since  their  coming  to  Hungary  the 
Magyars  were  always  massed  on  the  Alfold. 
From   the  Alfold   their  expansion  south   and 
north   for  centuries  has  been   inconsiderable. 
But  even  if  it  had  been  possible  to  have  Mag- 
yarized  the  Slovaks,  where  was  the  incentive  ? 
The  idea  of  nationality,  it  should  be  remem- 
bered,  had    no    place    in    men's    minds    then. 
First  came  the  throbbing  of  religion  ;  then  the 
sentiment  of  nationality.     Properly   speaking 


176       THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

there  were  no  Magyars,  or  Slavonians,  or  Ger- 
mans, or  Rumuns,  before  the  French  Revolu- 
tion. Caste  and  birth  formed  the  sole  division 
line  —  the  nobility  and  zemans  being  on  one 
side  and  the  serfs  on  the  other.  In  Hungary 
the  nationalization  of  the  people  was  late  in 
coming.  Until  1 791  Latin  had  been  the  lan- 
guage of  the  state,  superseding  all  other 
languages.  Again,  if  the  present  inhabitants 
of  Slovakland  are  descended  from  refugees, 
religious  and  political,  from  Bohemia  and  Mo- 
ravia, why  should  the  people  call  themselves 
Slovaks  ?  Where  did  they  get  the  name  ? 
There  are  Slovaks  in  Moravia.  They  speak  a 
subdialect  that  differs  from  the  Moravian  dia- 
lect. Where  did  these  Moravian  Slovaks  come 
from?  True,  Hussite  Bohemians  settled  in 
Slovakland  in  considerable  numbers.  Colonies 
of  them  sprang  up,  especially  during  the  armed 
raids  by  John  Jiskra  of  Brandys.  Numerous  ex- 
iles settled  in  the  country  later,  during  the  relig- 
ious persecutions  in  Bohemia  in  the  seventeenth 
century.  But  all  the  Bohemian  settlements 
are  accurately  known  :  contemporaneous  docu- 
ments enumerate  every  church,  castle,  and  town 
that  Captain  Jiskra  or  his  lieutenants  had  held. 
We  can  even  guess,  taking  the  then  population 
of  Bohemia  as  a  basis  of  calculation,  what  the 


MAGYAR  BROTHERS-IN-LAW         177 

number  of  these  refugees  had  been.  Suppos- 
ing that  there  were  100,000  of  these  Hussites, 
which  is  an  exaggerated  figure,  we  still  have 
the  bulk  of  the  nation  unaccounted  for.  The 
Slovaks  are  now  estimated  at  2,500,000  or 
3,000,000,  Bohemians  and  Moravians  in  round 
numbers  at  5,000,000.  We  may  assume  that 
in  the  past  the  same  or  nearly  the  same  ratio 
prevailed  as  now.  How  much  population 
would  it  have  taken  from  Bohemia  to  have 
colonized  Slovensko  by  Bohemians  ?  Strange 
to  say,  the  Bohemian  chroniclers  of  that  time, 
and  they  were  numerous,  have  not  recorded 
any  such  depopulation  of  their  native  country. 
So  much  concerning  the  absurd  contention 
that  the  Slovaks  are  descendants  of  refugees 
from  Bohemia. 

The  rise  of  the  Magyar  element  in  Hungary 
dates  back  to  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury. It  came  spontaneously.  Since  King 
Stephen's  time  Latin  had  been  recognized  and 
employed  as  the  official  language  of  the  coun- 
try. People  of  culture  also  preferred  it  as  a 
medium  of  intercourse.  A  change  occurred 
under  Joseph  II.  That  progressive  but  im- 
practicable monarch  became  dissatisfied  that 
Austria  should  be  a  polyglot  state.  He 
wished   his    subjects   to    forget   their   mother 


178        THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

tongues  and  to  speak  and  to  know  one  lan- 
guage only  ;  and  he  decided  that  that  language 
should  be  German.  Conformably  to  the  reso- 
lution he  formed  Joseph  II.  issued  a  number 
of  linguistic  ordinances  that  are  now  chiefly  re- 
membered for  the  odium  they  brought  on  their 
author.  Every  non-German  land  in  the  mon- 
archy was  aroused  to  instant  opposition.  The 
Hungarian  Estates  were  uncompromising,  re- 
fusing to  aid  in  the  enforcement  of  the  ordi- 
nances. It  took  just  a  decade  to  convince  the 
Emperor  that  his  hateful  innovations  were  a 
failure,  and  that,  in  trying  to  make  Austria 
German,  he  had  been  pursuing  an  unattainable 
dream.  Therefore,  he  revoked  the  ordinances, 
in  Hungary  at  least.  Unimportant  as  it  seemed 
at  that  time,  the  incident  may  really  be  said  to 
constitute  a  turning  point  in  modern  Hun- 
garian history.  Latin  had  in  the  meantime 
become  an  anachronism  and  the  Estates  con- 
cluded that  that  language  was  just  as  objec- 
tionable to  them  as  German.  Why  not,  since 
a  change  had  been  decided  upon,  replace 
Latin  with  the  language  of  a  people  who  have 
always  guided  Hungary's  destiny,  who  were 
politically  and  numerically  the  strongest  single 
factor  in  the  fatherland?  Unanimously  the 
diet  agreed  that  Magyar  should  be  the  succes- 


MAGYAR   BROTHERS-IN-LAW         [79 

sor  of  Latin.  First,  the  experiment  was  tried 
in  schools.  A  law  was  promulgated  in  1790 
introducing  Magyar  in  the  higher  institutions 
of  learning.  Another  law  was  enacted  in  1792 
requiring  every  government  official  to  show  a 
competent  knowledge  of  it.  By  1830  the  diet 
recommended  to  all  employees  of  the  state  to 
transact  business  in  Magyar  exclusively.  Six 
years  later  the  recommendation  assumed  the 
form  of  an  order.1  By  1848  Magyar  became 
compulsory  in  the  public  schools.  At  present 
it  is  paramount  in  parliament,  compulsory  in 
schools,  and  used  exclusively  in  the  administra- 
tion of  the  government. 

The  prestige  that  the  Magyar  element  at- 
tained as  a  result  of  the  elevation  of  its  idiom 
to  the  dignity  of  an  official  language  was  incal- 
culable and  instantaneous.  Until  the  passage 
by  the  diet  in  1  790  of  the  famous  ordinances, 
all  natives  of  Hungary  may  be  said  to  have  re- 
garded themselves  as  equal.     Since  then  their 

1  A  legal  opinion  which  is  entitled  to  some  respect  contends  that  a 
wrong  interpretation  was  originally  put  on  the  session  law  of  the 
diet  of  1790-1791.  What  that  law  terms  "  lingua  hungarica  nativa" 
should  not  be  translated  to  mean  Magyar,  because  under  an  estab- 
lished custom  a  person  of  Magyar  birth  used  to  be  designated  as 
"  Hungarus"  while  a  native  of  Hungary,  other  than  a  Magyar,  was 
styled  "Hungarus  nativus."  "If  this  be  true,"  reasons  the  above 
authority,  "  lingua  hungarica  nativa"  cannot  mean  the  Magyar  lan- 
guage, but  an  idiom  which  is  native  to  "  Hungarus  nativus,"  that  is 
Slovak  to  a  Slovak,  Rumun  to  a  Rumun,  etc. 


180       THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

mutual    relations    have    undergone    a    radical 
change.1 

You  fall  into  the  Magyar  cul-de-sac  the  mo- 
ment you  reach  Marchegg,  on  your  way  from 
Vienna  to  Budapest.  The  transformation  is 
wonderfully  sudden,  and  to  an  Austrian  must 
be  painful.  The  harsh  but  familiar  sound  of 
German  to  which  your  ear  has  accustomed  it- 
self during  your  stay  in  the  Hapsburg  capital 
ceases  to  be  heard  at  Marchegg,  a  town  near 
the  Hungarian  frontier,  and  its  place  is  every- 
where usurped  by  Magyar.  Even  the  Austrian 
double-headed  eagle  which  in  Cisleithania 
spreads  its  protecting  wings  over  every  "  Ta- 
bak  Trafik "  is  seen  no  more  this  side  of  the 
river  Leitha.  From  now  on  the  only  coat  of 
arms  that  one  sees  is  that  of  the  royal  Hunga- 
rian crown.  At  home,  in  the  H  of  burg,  Francis 
Joseph  I.  may  be  Emperor  of  Austria  if  he 
likes,  and  wear  the  title  which  his  ancestors 
assumed  in  1804,  but  here  in  Hungary  he 
must  be  King  or  nothing. 

1  In  1848  the  old-time  Latin  designation  of  the  country,  "  Hunga- 
ria,"  was  abolished  for  a  new  name,  "  Magyarorszag,"  and  the  law  of 
1868  created  the  fiction  that  Magyars  were  the  sole  nation  in  the  land, 
the  other  inhabitants  being  mere  "nationalities"  and  "alien 
nationalities"  at  that,  Accordingly,  no  Slovak  may  refer  to  his 
people  in  print  as  a  "  nation,"  only  as  "nationality."  Should  the 
proscribed  word  "nation"  nevertheless  appear  in  print  the  local 

prosecuting  attorney  may  proceed  at  once  to  punish  the  author. 


MAGYAR  BROTHERS-IN-LAW         181 

The  Austrians  assert  that  Hungary  contrib- 
utes as  her  share  toward  the  common  expenses 
30%  in  cash  and  gets  50$  of  rights  in  return. 
This  reproach  may  not  be  wholly  true ;  yet,  if 
any  one  ever  thought  that  the  Magyars  got  the 
poorer  side  of  the  bargain  they  made  with 
Austria  in  1867,  let  him  glance  at  the  balance- 
sheet  of  Hungary's  commerce  for  the  last 
twenty-five  years,  and,  above  all,  let  him  go  to 
Budapest  and  see  that  bustling  city.  With  its 
wide,  clean,  and  well  paved  "uts"  and  "utczas," 
teeming  with  business,  Budapest  bids  fair  to 
rival  Vienna  in  the  course  of  the  next  quarter 
of  a  century.  But  few  ties — not  those  of  blood 
and  common  ancestry,  remember — unite  Aus- 
tria and  Hungary  together.  The  army  and 
the  navy,  finances,  weights  and  measures,  cus- 
toms, and  foreig-n  affairs  are  some  of  the  things 
common  to  both  halves  of  the  empire.  Of  late 
years,  one  or  two  of  those  ties  are  beginning 
to  snap.  Already  a  party  is  forming  in  Aus- 
tria which  favors  the  erection  of  a  tariff  wall 
between  Transleithania  and  Cisleithania.  Hun- 
gary's yearly  output  of  wheat  is  so  enormous 
that  it  is  beginning  to  crush  the  small  Austrian 
miller  and  flour  merchant.  Every  wall  so  con- 
structed will,  in  the  nature  of  things,  mean  one 
tie  cut  loose.     At  present  the  people  demand 


1 82       THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

that  Magyar  be  substituted  for  German  in  their 
home  regiments.  To-morrow  they  are  bound 
to  ask  some  other  concession.  Eventually  the 
relationship  may  narrow  itself  to  that  of  a  per- 
sonal union.  And  suppose  there  is  a  deadlock 
then  ?  It  is  well  to  bear  in  mind  that,  while 
Austria  has  survived  the  cesarean  operation 
known  as  dualism,  she  has  never  been  herself 
since.  If  another  Beust  were  to  be  called  in, 
who  can  prophesy  the  result  ?  The  contem- 
plation is  a  mournful  one,  that,  while  Hungary 
could  exist  as  an  independent  state  without 
Austria,  that  power  could  hardly  live  without 
Hungary.  Let  whoever  doubts  it  glance  at 
the  map  of  the  empire.  It  will  be  seen  that, 
with  Hungary  taken  out  of  her  geographical 
body,  Austria's  boundaries  would  become  un- 
tenable, inviting  territorial  spoliation  on  three 
sides  at  once  :  by  Germany,  Italy,  and  Russia. 
Like  most  agricultural  people,  the  Magyars 
appear  to  have  no  predilection  for  business. 
One  can  see  it  in  the  make-up  of  their  capital, 
which  is  more  Hungarian  than  Magyar.  Al- 
though you  may  hear  almost  nothing  else  on 
the  Kerepesi  ut  and  the  Andrassy  lit  but  the 
euphonious  tongue  of  the  Arpads,  still,  scratch 
a  Magyar,  and  cither  a  German  or  a  Slavonian 
will  turn  up  !     Rarely,  to  your  query  in  Ger- 


MAGYAR  BROTHERS-IN-LAW         183 

man,  will  you  receive  the  answer,  "  Nem 
ertem  " — do  not  understand.  In  the  principal 
thoroughfares  of  Budapest  but  few  store  signs 
bear  names  with  a  Magyar  ring.  On  Jewish 
New  Year  the  author  noticed  fully  95  %  of  the 
stores  in  the  capital  closed.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  the  Hebrews  lend  the  weight  of  their 
enormous  wealth  and  intelligence  to  the  Mag- 
yar cause.  It  is  they  who  constitute  the  bulk 
of  newspaper  readers. 

What  one  must  respect  about  the  Magyars 
is  their  "  Schlagfertigkeit,"  or  readiness  to 
strike,  to  use  a  German  military  term.  This 
"  Schlagfertigkeit "  has  always  been  duly  ap- 
preciated in  Vienna.  A  nation  that  knew  how 
to  change  the  defeat  at  Vilagos  in  1849,  to 
victory  in  1867,  must  surely  possess  qualities 
which  even  Austria  is  bound  to  recognize. 
The  greatest  fortune  of  the  race  was  that  the 
native  nobility  steadfastly  espoused  its  cause. 
Unaided  by  the  nobility,  the  simple-minded 
and  proverbially  hard-headed  race  might  have 
never  become  the  ruling  factor  in  the  country 
which  it  is  to-day. 

Francis  Kossuth,  son  of  Louis  Kossuth,  said 
to  the  writer  in  the  fall  of  1903  in  Budapest : 

"  I  fear  that  our  relations  toward  Austria  are 
not  comprehended  abroad.    Hungary  and  Aus- 


1 84       THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

tria  are  two  sovereign  states.  The  law  of  1723 
defines  our  respective  positions  clearly.  We 
are  bound  to  mutual  self-defence,  that  is  all. 
At  each  coronation  the  Austrian  Emperor, 
who  is  King  of  Hungary,  takes  an  oath  to  the 
effect  that  he  will  defend  and  uphold  the  con- 
stitution of  the  country,  and  we  Hungarians 
pledge  ourselves  to  defend  him  in  return." 

And,  changing  the  course  of  his  conversation 
a  little,  Kossuth  proceeded  : 

"  We  do  not  meddle  with  the  internal  policy 
of  Austria,  but  we  view  with  apprehension  the 
endless  conflicts  between  nationalities  raging 
there.  It  is  this  racial  struggle  which  renders 
the  country  weak.  The  only  hope  I  see  for 
Austria  is  that  she  should  reconstruct  herself 
as  a  confederation.  The  Germans  there  are  in 
a  minority,  and  they  cannot  hope  to  maintain 
their  hegemony  over  the  Slavonians  much 
longer.  To  this  confederacy  we  Hungarians 
would  have  no  objection.  We  sympathize  with 
the  Bohemians  in  their  struggle  for  home  rule. 
They  are  entitled  to  it  exactly  as  much  as  we 
are.  Their  only  misfortune  was  that  they  had 
been  beaten  and  almost  exterminated.  Aus- 
tria could  never  down  us,  except  in  1849  ;  but 
she  had  to  borrow  troops  from  a  neighboring 
power  to  do  that." 

"  How  is  the  Emperor-King  liked  by  the 
Hungarians  ?  " 

"  There  is  no  disloyalty  in   Hungary,  none 


MAGYAR  BROTHERS-IN-LAW         185 

whatever.    The  greatest  trouble  with  our  King 
is  that  he  is  too  much  of  a  German." 
"  And  what  do  you  want  him  to  be  ?  " 
Kossuth  answered  readily,    "  A  Magyar." 
"  Suppose  your  relations  with  Austria  were 
only  those  of  a  personal   union  and  in  time 
even  that  tie  became  too  burdensome  to  the 
Hungarians  ?" 

"  We  Hungarians  could  not  help  that." 
"  A  pamphlet  was  issued  recently  in  Buda- 
pest advocating  the  idea  of  a  '  Nagy  Magyar- 
orszag '  —  a  Greater  Hungary,  that  should 
extend  to  the  Adriatic  Sea  and  should  include 
some  of  the  Balkan  States.  Is  your  'Party  of 
Independence  '  sponsor  to  such  a  plan  of  terri- 
torial aggrandizement?" 

"  No.  There  are  not  one  hundred  men  in  all 
Hungary  who  take  such  phantasies  seriously." 
"  When  your  father,  Louis  Kossuth,  visited 
the  United  States  in  1851  he  made  a  number 
of  speeches  there,  in  all  of  which  he  denounced 
the  Austrian  Government  for  tyrannizing  the 
Magyars.  It  is  now  charged  that  your  own 
people  are  guilty  of  the  same  acts  of  oppres- 
sion against  others.  Why  is  that  right  now 
which  was  wrong  in  1848  ?" 

"  There  is  no  persecution  in  Hungary.  The 
very  fact  that  our  census  shows  47  %  of  non- 
Magyar  people  in  the  country  proves  that 
there  is  not  and  cannot  be  any  persecution." 

So  much  for  Kossuth. 

It  is  the  boast  of  patriotic  Magyars  that  the 


1 86        THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

constitution  of  Hungary  is  one  of  the  most 
liberal  in  Europe.  Recently  a  Magyar  noble- 
man of  distinction  expressed  the  opinion,  at 
a  public  function  given  in  his  honor  in  New 
York,  that  the  people  of  Hungary  enjoyed  the 
same  measure  of  freedom  as  Americans  did, 
except  that  theirs  was  not  a  republican  form 
of  government. 

Judging  from  the  applause  that  greeted  it, 
the  sentiment  found  ready  belief  in  the  minds 
of  those  who  were  present.  Another  sentence 
that  evoked  enthusiasm  was  to  the  effect  that 
all  Hungarian  citizens  have  equal  rights  under 
the  law,  and  that  protection  is  assured  to  the 
different  nationalities  in  the  use  of  their 
speech  and  the  development  of  their  respec- 
tive culture.  Theoretically  this  may  be  true 
enough ;  whether  it  is  so  in  fact,  and  whether 
"  Magyar  freedom  "  implies  the  same  notion 
as  "  freedom  in  Hungary,"  must  be  seriously 
doubted.  Observing  foreigners  have  noticed, 
for  instance,1  that  the  restricted  suffrage,  the 
manner  of  voting,  and  the  arrangement  of  the 
electoral  districts  is  such  that,  except  for  the  40 
members  from  Croatia  and  Slavonia,  the  Mag- 
yars, who  according  to  Kossuth  constitute  only 
53  %  of  the  population,  hold  all  but  about  a 

1  Governments  and  Parties  in  Continental  Europe,  by  A.  Lawrence 
Lowell,  1896. 


MAGYAR  BROTHERS-IN-LAW         187 

score  of  seats  in  the  parliament.  Again,  out  of 
a  total  of  20,000,000  people  but  1,000,000  are 
eligible  to  citizenship,  the  bulk  of  the  voters 
being  disfranchised.  Until  now  the  elections 
have  been  monopolized  by  the  nobility,  an- 
cient and  new,  by  large  landed  proprietors, 
captains  of  industry,  and  their  lawyers.  Al- 
most all  the  leading  statesmen  and  politicians 
were  aristocrats  by  birth  !  Aristocracy  it  was 
that  stood  at  the  helm  of  every  revolution. 
Hungarian  premiers,  chosen  from  among  the 
high  nobility,  managed  to  build  up  and  main- 
tain a  government  party,  to  which  was  given 
the  adjective, — does  it  not  sound  like  irony  ? — 
"  Liberal." 

"  It  is  a  well-known  fact,"  comments  an 
opposition  journal,  "  that  the  Liberal  party 
maintains  itself  in  power  by  means  of  money 
wrung  from  wealthy  men  who  are  willing  to 
pay  well  for  a  Hungarian  patent  of  nobility. 
By  far  the  most  bountiful  dispenser  of  titles 
was  Koloman  Tisza.  During  his  premiership 
no  less  than  290  rich  commoners  were  en- 
nobled. No  Hungarian  premier  since  1848 
made  such  a  brilliant  record  in  this  particular 
line  as  Tisza.  The  stir  that  was  caused  by 
the  elevation  of  the  brothers  Guttmann  to  the 
rank  of  barons  is  still  fresh  in  the  minds  of 
opposition  journalists  in  Hungary  and  Croatia. 


i88       THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

It  was  charged  openly  at  that  time  that  the 
government  party  swelled  its  election  fund  by 
some  $240,000,  this  sum  representing  the 
assessment  imposed  on  the  Guttmanns  for 
the  title.  '  Why  wonder,'  wrote  Arpad,  sar- 
castically, '  in  the  Middle  Ages  baronies  used 
to  be  conferred  on  people  who  furnished  their 
kings  with  large  armed  forces.  Why  in  our 
times  should  not  patriots  be  raised  to  the 
rank,  who  are  able  to  supply  the  government 
with  delegates  willing  to  fight  its  battles  in  the 
more  modern  sense  —  on  the  floor  of  the 
parliament  ? '  " 

Recently  a  journal  was  prosecuted  on  the 
usual  charge  of  "  incitement  against  Magyar 
nationality,"  it  having  encouraged  a  Slovak 
town  to  resist,  by  every  means  at  its  command, 
the  Magyarization  of  its  name.  Needless  to 
say  that  the  editor  was  found  guilty,  and  the 
town  authorities  lost  their  cause.  Systemati- 
cally the  Slavic  nomenclature  of  cities,  castles, 
villages,  mountains,  streams,  and  hillsides  up 
in  the  north  is  rubbed  off,  as  it  were,  and  re- 
placed by  Magyar  nomenclature.  In  no  other 
European  country  has  the  craze  for  changing 
one's  patronymic,  voluntarily  and  otherwise, 
taken  such  a  firm  hold  as  in  Hungary.  In 
1898  alone,  6722  persons  changed  their  names, 
among  the  applicants  being  58  priests,  123 
professors,  116  school  teachers,  58  physicians, 


MAGYAR  BROTHERS-IN-LAW         189 

10  lawyers,  7  journalists,  33  merchants,  etc. 
It  is  characteristic  that  while  the  government 
will  permit  a  German  or  a  Slavonian  to  assume 
a  Magyar  name  it  will  in  every  case  refuse  the 
adoption  of  Slavonian  or  German  patronymics. 
As  things  are,  it  would  be  clearly  hazardous 
to  guess  a  Hungarian's  ancestry  by  his  name. 
Thus,  for  instance,  the  name  of  that  brave 
Magyar  Deputy  Polonyi  used  to  be,  before  the 
transformation,  Pollatscheck.  Deputy  Veszi, 
a  noted  chauvinist,  bore  the  name  of  Weiss 
before  the  exchange.  Deputy  Visontay's  origi- 
nal name  was  Weinberger.  The  publishers 
Rakosi  and  Legrady  formerly  answered  to  the 
names  of  Kremser  and  Pollack  respectively. 
Irany  once  upon  a  time  was  Halbschuh  ;  Deputy 
Morcsanyi,  Preslicka  ;  Deputy  Heltay,  Hofer ; 
Deputy-Canon  Komlossy,  Kleinkind ;  Palmai 
used  to  be  Pereles  ;  Szederkenyi,  a  foremost 
Ugronist,  Schoennagel;  Deputy  Gajary,  Bettel- 
heim  ;  Deputy  Mezei,  Gruenfeld  ;  Deputy  Csar- 
tar,  Loeffelholer;  Fenyvessy,  Griesskorn.  With 
artists  and  writers  it  is  likewise.  It  is  gener- 
ally known  that  the  paternal  name  of  the  most 
brilliant  Magyar  poet,  Petofi,  was  Petrovic. 
Less  known  is  it  that  behind  Munkacsy,  the 
painter,  was  concealed  Lieb,  and  behind  Laszlo, 
also   a   painter,    Laub,   and   that    Wilhelmina 


igo       THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

Parlaghy  was  a  Brachfeld.  The  ancestral 
name  of  Matrai,  the  sculptor,  was  Mudrlak  ; 
of  composer  Mosony.  Brand  ;  of  pianist  Po- 
lonyi,  Pollatsche  k  ;  of  composer  Konti,  Kohn  ; 
of  violinist  Remenyi,  well  remembered  in 
America,  Hoffman  ;  of  the  actresses  Fay, 
Helvay,  and  Naday  —  Jeiteles,  Schweitzer, 
and  Navratil  respectively.  Professor  Kornfeld 
changed  his  name  to  Koranyi,  statistician 
Hajduska  to  Korosi,  Professor  of  surgery 
Kacenka  to  Racsay,  the  orientalist  and 
historian  Bamberger  to  Vambery,  historian 
Morgenstern  to  Marczali,  Professor  Kominik 
to  Komonyi,  and  so  forth. 

The  Magyars  have  an  instinctive  distrust  of 
the  Slavs,  and  they  like  to  believe  that  all 
Upper  Hungary  is  steeped  deep  in  panslav- 
ism.  Yet  the  real  danger  they  do  not  appear 
to  see — the  danger  of  pangermanism,  which  is 
stealthily  enveloping  Austria  and  Hungary, 
threatening  to  crush  them  both.  The  Slavs 
have  still  too  many  of  their  domestic  troubles 
to  settle  and  to  occupy  them  before  they  are 
ready  for  conquests.  Moreover,  they  are  liv- 
ing in  the  morning  of  their  history.  The 
Magyars  are  nothing  if  not  sagacious,  but  will 
it  not  be  too  late  when  they  at  last  realize  the 
true  source  of  danger  to  their  national  hopes  ? 


PERSECUTION. 

"  Full  freedom  is  assured  to  the  different  nationalities  in  the  use  of 
their  speech  and  the  unfolding  of  their  culture." — The  Millen- 
nium of  Hungary,  1897,  page  415;  official  work  approved  by 
Ministry  of  Education. 

COUNTLESS  cases  of  the  flagitious  per- 
secution of  Slovaks  could  be  cited.  A 
few  instances,  taken  from  here  and  there,  are 
printed  for  the  perusal  of  an  impartial  reader : 

Dr.  Julius  Markovic  was  a  candidate  for  par- 
liament from  a  Slovak  district  in  the  present 
year  (1905).  Contrary  to  expectations  he  was 
defeated,  because  over  one  hundred  of  his 
votes  were  thrown  out,  unjustly,  as  he  charged. 
Markovic  entered  a  protest.  At  once  the  Mag- 
yar party  filled  a  counter-protest.  The  court 
to  which  the  contest  was  taken  ordered,  in  fine 
impartiality,  that  Markovic  and  his  protestants 
deposit  a  security  ample  to  cover  the  costs  of 
the  contest.  And  as  the  counter-protestants 
put  in  the  names  of  some  eight  hundred  wit- 
nesses to  be  examined,  to  defeat  the  ends  of 

191 


192       THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

justice,  of  course,  the  court  fixed  the  disburse- 
ments at  eight  hundred  florins  a  day.  As  the 
examination  of  several  hundred  witnesses 
would  necessarily  have  dragged  on  for  weeks 
and  weeks,  and  would  have  required  a  security 
equal  to  a  king's  ransom,  Dr.  Markovic  very 
sensibly  gave  up  the  contest,  and  his  opponent 
to-day  sits  in  the  "freely-elected"  Hungarian 
Parliament. 

The  Hungarian  postal  authorities  recently 
put  on  the  prohibited  list  the  Ndrodni  Listy, 
an  influential  daily  paper  published  in  Prague, 
Bohemia.  The  editor  went  to  Pest  to  see  what 
the  trouble  was,  and  there  a  department  head 
informed  him  that  his  journal  was  excluded 
from  Hungary  because,  first,  it  from  time  to  time 
printed  articles  hostile  to  the  "  Magyar  state  "  ; 
secondly,  "  it  accused  the  government  of  forci- 
ble Magyarization  "  ;  and  lastly,  "  it  encouraged 
closer  literary  relations  between  the  Slovaks 
and  Bohemians." 

On  July  23,  1899,  during  Szell's  ministry,  a 
public  meeting  was  held  in  Sv.  Mikulas  (Lipt6 
Szt.  Miklos).  A  school  teacher,  Salva,  who  has 
since  been  suspended  for  "  panslavic  agitation," 
attempted  to  speak  concerning  the  lack  of 
schools  among  Slovaks.     Joob,  a  government 


PERSECUTION  193 

official  who  was  present  at  the  meeting,  cau- 
tioned Salva  not  to  use  the  term  "  Slovak." 
The  speaker  then  used  the  term  "  man  "  instead 
of  "  Slovak  "  ;  but  even  this  designation  proved 
objectionable,  and  Salva  was  not  allowed  to 
proceed.  The  next  speaker,  Rev.  Kubik,  was 
also  stopped  by  J 60b  because  he  alluded  to 
Slovaks  as  "  the  men  from  Liptov  County," 
and  to  their  language  as  "  our  mother  tongue." 

A  schoolbook  prepared  for  the  public  schools 
by  John  Gyorffy,  and  approved  by  the  Min- 
istry of  Education,  says  on  page  10 :  "  Mag- 
yarorszag  is  our  fatherland,  in  which  live, 
besides  Magyars,  people  of  other  tongues. 
Such  people  are  designated  as  nationalities. 
In  our  country  live  citizens  of  German,  Rumun, 
Servian,  Russian,  Croatian,  and  Slovene  (Vend) 
nationality  who,  together  with  the  Magyars, 
compose  one  Hungarian  nation." 

Slovaks,  as  will  be  noticed,  are  purposely 
omitted. 

Formerly  several  of  the  middle  schools  and 
training  institutes  for  teachers  had  modest  libra- 
ries of  Slovak  books.  All  these  have  since  been 
removed.  In  the  pedagogical  institute  at 
Trnava,  there  was  a  collection  of  books  gath- 


13 


i94       THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

ered  together  by  Matzenauer,  a  well-known 
writer  and  patriot,  Matzenauer's  successor 
hid  the  books  in  a  garret  and  a  still  later  in- 
cumbent consigned  them  to  the  flames.  At 
Stiavnica  eight  hundred  Slovak  books  were 
thrown  on  a  rubbish  heap. 

There  is  a  bank  in  Martin  called  "Tatra," 
incorporated  originally  with  a  capital  of  400,000 
florins.  The  incorporators,  all  of  them  promi- 
nent Slovaks,  could  not,  hard  as  they  tried, 
obtain  a  charter,  until  they  consented  to  put 
Magyar  partisans  and  government  officials  at 
the  head  of  the  executive  of  the  board  of  di- 
rectors. Even  now  the  bank  has  on  its  roster 
of  officers  pliant  creatures  forced  on  it  by  the 
government.  Usually  it  is  some  renegade  of 
the  zeman  class  who  is  foisted  upon  the  stock- 
holders, and  who,  in  return  for  the  salary  he 
receives,  keeps  the  government  pretty  well  in- 
formed as  to  the  bank's  doings.  If  a  loan  is 
made  to  a  "  panslav  merchant,"  that  individual 
is  sure  to  suffer  for  it  in  the  end.  The  citi- 
zens of  Brehy  (Magasmart)  applied  for  a  loan 
to  Tatra  recently.  The  local  teacher  who 
assisted  in  the  loan  negotiations  on  behalf  of 
the  commune  was  persecuted  and  harried  for 
it,  till  at  last  he  was  deprived  of  his  place. 


PERSECUTION  195 

About  twelve  years  ago  the  people  built  a 
handsome  Casino,  or  "  Dom,"  as  they  call  it, 
in  Martin.  Since  the  Matica  building  has 
been  confiscated,  the  Dom  is  the  only  public 
property  of  the  Slovak  people.  There  are  a 
number  of  taverns  and  inns  at  Martin,  but  the 
"  Dom,"  though  it  is  by  far  the  most  preten- 
tious building  in  the  town,  cannot  get  a  liquor 
license.  As  a  result  the  "  Dom  "  is  a  pretty 
bad  investment. 

At  Martin  they  built  a  cellulose  factory  in 
1903.  The  "  Tatra  Bank  "  financed  the  scheme, 
which  represented  an  investment  of  some  $300,- 
000  (1,500,000  crowns).  Imagine  the  conster- 
nation of  the  promoters  and  stockholders  when 
the  government  announced  that  it  would  not 
permit  the  operation  of  the  cellulose  works 
by  the  management  then  in  charge.  This 
plainly  meant  that  the  "panslavs"  who  put 
money  in  the  enterprise  must  either  get  out  or 
sell  out.  For  months  after  completion  the  cel- 
lulose factory  was  forced  to  remain  idle.  The 
one  concession  that  the  authorities  granted  was 
to  permit  the  management  to  run  the  costly 
machinery  every  Saturday  to  save  it  from  rust 
and  ruin.  Otherwise  not  a  wheel  could  be 
turned  in  the  place.     The  writer  happened  to 


196       THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

be  in  Martin  just  at  that  time,  and  when  the 
circumstances  were  related  to  him  he  could 
scarcely  believe  the  truth  of  it.  At  last,  having 
first  exhausted  every  means  of  getting  a  license 
from  the  authorities,  but  failing  everywhere,  the 
stockholders  were  glad  to  sell  out  the  "pan- 
slavic  cellulose"  to  a  party  of  capitalists  in  Pest. 

At  present  the  Slovaks  are  represented  by 
two  deputies  in  the  parliament,  although  by 
right — providing  of  course  elections  were  free 
from  violence,  intimidation,  bribery,  and  notori- 
ous partiality — they  should  have  at  least  forty 
deputies.  But  it  is  only  within  the  last  decade 
or  so  that  they  are  represented  at  all.  Despite 
repeated  trials  in  the  past  no  Slovak  candidate 
was  fortunate  enough  to  break  through  the 
iron  ring,  and  that  even  in  counties  having, 
except  for  a  sprinkling  of  local  officials,  pure 
native  population.  What  is  the  reason  ?  The 
solution  of  this  shocking  condition  of  things 
is  directly  attributable  to  the  Hungarian  elec- 
toral law,  which  is  everywhere  partial  to  the 
Magyar  race,  and  to  the  corrupt  methods  em- 
ployed in  election  times  by  government  officials. 
In  the  first  place,  electors  are  arbitrarily  dis- 
franchised by  local  notaries  who  prepare  the 
electoral  sheets.      In  Nitra  county  there  were 


PERSECUTION  197 

in  1895  22,812  electors.  In  1897  the  number 
was  decreased  to  17,073.  Among  the  5739 
electors  disfranchised  for  various  reasons  there 
was  not  one  Magyar.  The  electoral  lists  are 
prepared  with  the  view  of  catching  the  unwary. 
An  old  trick  is  to  misspell  names.  Thus  Valek, 
if  he  be  an  opposition  Slovak,  is  entered  as 
Valon  ;  Kasak  as  Kassan ;  Kucera  as  Kucuri, 
and  so  forth.  Another  method  employed  is  to 
enter  on  the  register  either  the  wrong  age  or 
occupation  of  the  voter,  which  of  course  results 
in  his  disqualification,  leading,  possibly,  to 
arrest  and  punishment.  Deputy  Gedeon  Ro- 
honczy  declared  on  the  floor  of  parliament 
February  14,  1898,  that  the  government  spent 
in  the  fall  of  1896  three  millions  of  the  people's 
money  to  defeat  opposition  candidates.  Ro- 
honczy  himself  admitted  receiving  a  bribe  from 
the  government  that  year,  amounting  to  5000 
florins.  1 

In  1879  a  number  of  citizens  of  Tisovec 
(Tiszolcz)  held  a  meeting  for  the  purpose  of 
organizing  a  singing  society,  and  in  compli- 
ance with  the  law  in  due  time  submitted  for 
approval  a  set   of  by-laws  adopted  by  them. 

'  Charles  Kalal's  exhaustive  article  in  the  Bohemian  review  OsvUta 
entitled  "  About  the  Magyarization  of  Slovakland,"  1898. 


198       THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

Because  of  some  trivial  technicality,  the  authori- 
ties rejected  the  by-laws.  Promptly  the  petition- 
ers remedied  the  alleged  error  and  handed  in 
amended  by-laws.  What  became  of  these  no 
one  knew  ;  but  tired  of  waiting  the  petitioners 
in  December,  1886,  filed  a  new  copy.  A  few 
days  after  the  filing  a  notice  was  served  on  the 
attorney  for  the  petitioners  to  the  effect  that  his 
clients  had  incurred  a  fine  of  three  dollars,  owing 
to  inadequate  revenue  stamping.  An  appeal 
was  so  far  successful  that  the  fine  was  reduced 
about  one  half.  A  higher  court  set  aside  the 
fine  altogether.  In  the  month  of  May  the 
county  authorities  at  last  took  up  the  matter 
of  the  by-laws,  deciding,  however,  that  in  view 
of  recurrent  manifestations  of  disloyalty  the 
by-laws  must  be  disallowed.  At  once  an  ap- 
peal was  instituted  to  the  proper  authorities  in 
Pest,  with  the  result  that  the  government  re- 
fused to  interfere.  A  third  draft  of  the  by-laws 
appeared  before  the  county  authorites  in  1890  ; 
but  with  no  better  success  than  before.  Pan- 
slavism  was  still  rampant  among  certain  classes 
of  Tisovec,  explained  a  patriotic  official,  and 
for  that  reason  the  by-laws  could  not  be  recom- 
mended to  be  adopted.  From  this  adverse 
decision  the  petitioners  appealed  anew  to  the 
ministry,  which  in  turn  ordered  the  county  to 


PERSECUTION  199 

set  forth  its  dissenting  reasons  more  fully  and 
specifically.  Thereupon  the  county  reported 
that  in  its  opinion  the  industrial  classes  of 
Tisovec  harbored  anti-Magyar  feelings.  On 
the  strength  of  this  argument,  the  ministry 
dismissed  the  appeal.  Just  before  the  elections 
to  the  diet,  one  of  the  head  officials  of  the 
county  met  some  of  the  petitioners  by  appoint- 
ment, and  then  and  there  entered  into  a  com- 
pact with  them  to  recommend  their  by-laws 
for  approval,  providing  they  in  turn  would  sup- 
port the  government  candidate.  Accordingly 
the  much-tried  by-laws  were  once  more  sub- 
mitted for  the  scrutiny  of  the  authorities. 
Unfortunately  the  county  clerk  did  not  like 
the  proposed  name  of  the  society.  So  he 
asked  the  petitioners  to  change  it  and  hand  in 
the  by-laws  at  some  later  day.  The  suggestion 
was  willingly  complied  with.  After  long  and 
patient  waiting,  it  became  plain  to  them  that 
the  county  officials  procrastinated  on  purpose, 
and  the  petitioners,  or  rather  those  of  them  who 
were  yet  living,  decided  to  ignore  the  local 
authorities  and  to  send  a  certified  copy  direct 
to  Pest  to  be  filed  there.  This  so  angered  the 
local  Magyar  patriots  that  their  mouthpiece, 
the  Gomor  Kishonl,  published  a  scathing 
article  against  Tisovec,  calling  the  petitioners 


200       THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

bandits!  In  course  of  time  the  government 
returned  the  by-laws  to  the  municipality  of 
Tisovec.  What  did  that  corporation  think  of 
them  ?  Of  course  Tisovec  gave  its  glad  sanction 
— but  there  the  matter  rested  again.  And  thus 
the  citizens  of  Tisovec  waited  for  nineteen 
years  for  the  approval  of  the  by-laws  of  a  sing- 
ing society. 

A  number  of  Slovak  working  men  in  Pest 
decided,  a  short  time  ago,  to  organize  an  edu- 
cational society.  The  ministry  rejected  the 
by-laws  on  the  ground  "  that  an  educational 
organization  pursuing  nationalist  tendencies 
could  not  be  allowed." 

The  Martin  Ndrodnie  Noviny  published  an 
article  on  May  3,  1897,  entitled  "  Paralysa  Pro- 
gressiva," in  which  the  writer  denounced  in 
scathing  language  the  capricious  Magyariza- 
tion  of  Slavic  names  of  towns,  etc.,  in  Nitra 
County,  urging  the  respective  municipalities 
to  resist  the  practice  by  invoking  the  law's  aid 
if  necessary.  In  support  of  his  contention  the 
writer  cited  the  opinion  of  Charles  Taganyi, 
a  member  of  the  Magyar  Historical  Society 
who  was  sent  out  to  report  on  the  matter. 
Taganyi  was  adverse  to  the  plan,  claiming 
that  "  local  topographical  names  were  the  most 


PERSECUTION  201 

trustworthy  witnesses  of  the  past  of  this  or  that 
place,  equal  in  value  to  documentary  proof, 
and,  whenever  possible,  should  be  preserved." 
July  15,  1897,  the  Ndrodnie  Noviny  printed 
another  stinging  article,  called  "  Slavery  from 
Above  and  from  Below,"  and  written  in  the 
usual  opposition  vein.  To  the  prosecuting 
attorney  both  articles  appeared  libellous,  and 
on  June  23,  1898,  Ambrose  Pietor,  one  of  the 
editors,  though  not  the  author  of  the  articles, 
was  found  guilty  by  a  jury  of  twelve  for 
"  inciting  against  Magyar  nationality,"  and 
sentenced  to  state's  prison  for  eight  months. 

When  the  news  spread  in  Martin  that  Pietor 
was  returning  home,  having  served  his  term  in 
jail,  the  relatives  of  the  popular  editor,  his 
friends,  and  admirers,  flocked  to  the  railroad 
station  to  shake  hands  with  him  and  felicitate 
him  on  his  home-coming.  Mathias  Dula,  it 
appears,  made  a  short  address  of  welcome 
when  his  friend  was  alighting  from  the  rail- 
way carriage,  and  three  women,  Viera  Dula, 
Etelka  Cablk,  and  Ella  Svehla,  presented 
Pietor  with  flowers. 

Quietly  and  orderly  the  enthusiastic  throng 
now  proceeded  from  the  railroad  station  to  the 
town. 

At  this  juncture  appeared  on   the  scene — 


202       THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

more  as  an  agent  provocateur  than  as  an  offi- 
cer of  peace,  for  until  now  peace  was  not 
disturbed — Attila  Ujhelyi  and  ordered  his  gen- 
darmes to  surround  the  vehicle  in  which  sat 
Pietor  and  Dula.  Angry  and  insulted  at  this 
unnecessary  show  of  force,  the  crowd  began  to 
sing  the  national  anthem,  and  continued  sing- 
ing this  and  other  patriotic  songs  until  the 
editor  reached  his  home.  Later  Ujhelyi's 
gendarmes  broke  into  the  court  of  Mudron's 
house,  where  the  editorial  rooms  of  the  Ndrod- 
nie  Noviny  are  located,  under  the  pretext  of 
looking  for  a  "  tall  man  who  sang  defiantly  in 
their  faces."  When  ordered  out  of  the  prem- 
ises, which  they  had  no  right  to  enter  without 
a  warrant  of  law,  the  gendarmes  loaded  their 
muskets  and  threatened  to  shoot  if  interfered 
with. 

The  sequel  to  the  above  incident  came  later, 
when  Ujhelyi,  anxious  to  make  a  record  for 
himself  before  his  superiors  as  a  "  scourge  of 
panslavs,"  lodged  a  complaint  for  seditious  con- 
duct, on  information  and  belief,  against  thirty- 
two  citizens  of  Martin.  Oddly  enough  Ujhelyi 
informed  on  every  one  against  whom  he  either 
had  a  personal  grudge  or  whom  he  suspected 
of  panslavic  agitation,  no  matter  whether  he 
or  she  were  present  at  the  demonstration  or 


PERSECUTION  203 

not,  as  was  proved  by  subsequent  investiga- 
tion. 

Long  and  ruinous — ruinous  for  the  defend- 
ants of  course — prosecution  ensued,  with  the 
result  that  the  criminal  court  sentenced  to 
prison  Matus  Dula  for  3  months,  B.  Bulla  for 
2  months,  Svetozar  Hurban  for  1  month,  Vla- 
dimir Mudrofi  1  month,  Andrew  Halasa  1 
month,  Joseph  Skultety  1  month,  Joseph 
Capko  1  month,  Steve  Cablk  1  month,  John 
Cablk  14  days,  Ludwig  Soltesz  14  days,  Joseph 
Fabry  14  days,  Joseph  Cipar  1  month,  An- 
drew Sokolik  14  days,  Samuel  Kucharik  14 
days,  Konstantin  Hurban  1  month,  Paul  Mud- 
ron  14  days,  Peter  Kompis  1  month,  Gedeon 
Turzo  14  days,  Julius  Branecky  14  days,  Anton 
Novak  14  days,  Anton  Bielek  14  days  ;  Viera 
Dula  was  fined  50  florins,  Etelle  Cablk  100 
florins,  Helena  Svehla  50  florins.  The  Appel- 
late Court,  to  which  the  cases  were  taken,  enor- 
mously increased  the  sentences  and  fines  along 
the  whole  line.  Thus  Matus  Dula  received 
6  months  imprisonment,  Svetozar  Hurban  5 
months,  Mudron  3  months,  and  so  forth. 

In  its  insane  desire  to  denationalize  Slo- 
vensko  at  all  hazards,  the  Hungarian  Govern- 
ment lent   its   aid   to   the  "transportation"  of 


204       THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

Slovak  children  to  pure  Magyar  districts.  The 
first  expedition  of  this  kind,  conducted  ostensi- 
bly under  the  auspices  of  the  "  Culture  Society 
of  Upper  Hungary,"  was  undertaken  in  1874, 
and  netted  400  children.  On  the  second  ex- 
pedition, in  1887,  1 90  youngsters  were  captured 
and  separated  from  their  parents  without  the 
latter's  consent.  A  third  child  hunt  took  place 
in  1888,  and  with  the  assistance  of  gendarmes 
86  children  were  taken  away.  The  fourth  ex- 
pedition, organized  in  Liptov  County,  brought 
only  15  children.  The  fifth  child  crusade  is 
recorded  in  Nitra  County,  in  1892,  174  child- 
ren being  herded  together  for  transportation 
to  Magyar  districts  in  the  Hungarian  lowlands. 
About  this  time  a  violent  protest  was  raised 
against  the  inhuman  practice  and  it  was 
stopped. 

In  June,  1904,  at  Paludzka  (Kispalugya)  the 
Rev.  Paul  Cobrda,  while  conducting  a  school 
examination  at  that  place,  sang  with  the  child- 
ren three  popular  Slovak  songs,  one  of  them 
being  Kto  za  pravdii  hori  ("He  who  is  afire 
for  truth  "),  and  at  the  end  of  a  patriotic  talk  to 
the  little  folk  said  something  like  this  :  "  Dear 
children,  remember  well  your  lessons,  for  it 
may  have  been  your  last  examination  in 
Slovak.      They    may  want  to  deprive  you  of 


PERSECUTION  205 

your  mother  tongue  in  the  future,  and  you 
may  hear  nothing  but  Magyar."  On  February 
23,  1905,  the  reverend  preacher  was  tried  by  a 
jury  at  Ruzomberk  (Rozsahegy)  on  a  charge 
of  sedition,  and  sentenced  to  state's  prison  for 
six  months,  to  pay  a  fine  of  200  crowns  and  the 
costs  of  the  trial,  amounting  to  560  crowns. 

Relatives  and  admirers  of  the  late  Joseph 
M.  Hurban,  patriot  and  preacher,  erected  at 
Hlboka*  a  suitable  monument  to  his  memory. 
Arrangements  were  made  to  have  the  monu- 
ment unveiled  on  September  8,  1892.  From 
all  parts  of  the  country  people  arrived  to  be 
present  at  the  unveiling  ceremony.  To  the  in- 
dignation of  the  assembled  multitude,  and  to 
the  poignant  grief  of  the  family,  gendarmes 
broke  into  the  church  and  parish  house  and 
ordered  the  crowd  to  disperse,  threatening  to 
use  force  unless  their  orders  were  strictly 
obeyed.  The  widow  and  immediate  members 
of  the  family  were  allowed  to  enter  the  ceme- 
tery conditionally.  But  the  family  was  not  in 
a  mood  to  barter  for  conditions  with  the  official 
in  charge  of  the  gendarmes,  explaining  that,  as 
the  local  authorities  had  permitted  the  unveil- 
ing ceremony  to  take  place  unrestricted,  and 
that  as  nothing  had  been  done  to  disturb  the 


206       THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

peace,  the  ceremony  must  go  on  as  originally 
planned  or  not  at  all.  Smarting  under  the 
brutal  conduct  of  the  gendarmes,  and  deeply 
hurt  in  his  filial  affection,  the  son  of  the  dead 
patriot,  Svetozar  Hurban  Vajansk^,  who  is 
editor-in-chief  of  the  Ndrodnie  Novz?iy,  wrote 
a  scathing  condemnation  of  the  government 
which  tolerated  such  atrocities,  heading  his 
article  "  Hyenism  in  Hungary."  For  the 
authorship  of  the  article  the  distinguished  pub- 
licist was  prosecuted,  convicted,  and  promptly 
sentenced  to  two  years  in  state's  prison. 

Isadore  Ziak,  in  1898,  wrote  an  article  for 
the  Ndrodnie  Noviny,  under  the  heading 
"  Megalomania."  To  put  it  somewhat  irrever- 
ently, Ziak  essayed  to  prove  that  the  Magyars 
were  suffering  from  a  case  of  "  big  head."  The 
district  attorney  of  the  place  recognized  in  the 
article  an  insult  to  the  dominant  race  ;  in  other 
words, the  crime  of  inciting  against  the  Magyars, 
and  prosecuted  the  author.  On  the  trial  of  the 
case,  Ziak's  attorney  tried  to  convince  the  jury 
that  panslavism,  for  which  the  Slovaks  were 
being  harried  interminably,  was  a  myth  and  an 
invention.  "  Not  so,  however,  is  pan-Magyar- 
ism,  which  purposes  to  denationalize  Hungary." 
Continuing,  /liak's  attorney  pleaded  : 


OJiHAjh^ 


PERSECUTION  207 

"  The  prosecution  urges  you  to  act  in  ac- 
cordance with  paragraph  172  of  the  Penal 
Laws,  which  treats  of  incitement  against  a  class 
or  nationality.  Do  you  remember  what  that 
good  and  honorable  Magyar  Mocsary  said 
when  the  law  under  which  you,  gentlemen  of 
the  jury,  are  asked  to  convict  my  client,  was 
debated  in  the  diet  ?  Mocsary  maintained  at 
that  time  that  the  law  was  a  device  to  oppress 
non-Magyar  people.  True,  Minister  Pauler 
defended  the  measure,  assuring  the  legislature 
that  those  who  conceived  the  law  had  in  mind 
the  protection  of  Magyars  and  non-Magyars 
equally.  But  what  does  experience  teach  us 
from  day  to  day  ?  That  non-Magyar  defend- 
ants alone  are  caught  in  the  meshes  of  this  law 
— for  has  any  one  ever  heard  that  this  kind  of 
prosecution  was  brought  against  a  Magyar 
newspaper  for  inciting  against  Slovaks,  not- 
withstanding the  fact  that  it  is  the  latter  who 
suffer  most  in  the  columns  of  the  hostile  press  ? 
We  suspect  that  the  government  has  an  object 
in  bringing  all  these  suits  against  our  principal 
newspaper,  the  Ndrodnie  Noviny.  That  ob- 
ject seems  to  be  to  muzzle  and  to  ruin  our 
press.  In  one  year  the  editors  of  the  Ndrodnie 
Noviny  were  saddled  with  nineteen  months 
of  state's  prison,  and  1600  florins  in  fines." 

All  pleading  and  eloquence  were  in  vain,  for 
the  sentence  of  the  court  was  :  "  Isadore  Ziak, 
having  been  found  guilty  of  incitement  against 


2o8       THE  SLOVAKS  OF  HUNGARY 

the  Magyar  race  in  the  article  entitled  '  Meg- 
alomania,' is  sentenced  to  state's  prison  for 
three  months,  and  to  pay  a  fine  of  800  crowns 
in  addition  to  the  cost  of  the  trial." 

In  February,  1905,  Igor  Hrusovsky,  editor 
of  the  Povazske  Noviny,  received  a  sentence  of 
one  year  in  state's  prison  and  500  crowns  fine 
because  of  seditious  incitement  against  the 
Magyars.  Wherein  consisted  Hrusovsky's 
crime  ?  In  disagreeing  with  a  jury  that  had 
found  guilty  of  the  crime  of  incitement  John 
Valasek,  a  Slovak  representative  to  parliament. 

As  justly  famous  is  the  case  of  the  brothers 
Markovic,  one  of  whom  is  a  lawyer  and  the 
other  a  physician,  and  of  Ludevit  Culik,  a 
Protestant  minister.  On  September  22,  1901. 
Rudolph  Markovic,  who  was  a  nationalist  can- 
didate for  parliament,  came  in  company  with 
his  brother  to  Home  Bzince  (Felsobotfalu)  to 
speak  to  his  constituents.  It  appears  that  both 
brothers  Markovic  in  their  speeches  in  this 
place  condemned  the  mad  course  of  the  gov- 
ernment toward  the  Slovaks.  From  Bzince 
the  Markovic  brothers  proceeded  on  the  same 
day  to  Lubina,  and  there  again  addressed  a 
crowd  of  about  600  to  800  people,  in  the  usual 
opposition  style  of  campaign  speakers.      Rev. 


PERSECUTION  209 

Culik  also  spoke  at  the  latter  place.  To  the 
local  notary  the  speeches  appeared  seditious, 
and  he  lodged  a  complaint  against  the  speak- 
ers, with  the  result  that  the  criminal  court 
at  Nitra,  which  town  was  once  the  proud  seat 
of  King  Svatopluk,  sentenced  Dr.  Rudolph  Mar- 
kovic to  state's  prison  for  five  months  with  500 
crowns  fine  ;  Dr.  Julius  Markovic  to  state's 
prison  for  two  months  with  200  crowns  fine ; 
pastor  Ludevit  Culik  to  three  months  state's 
prison  with  500  crowns  fine.  From  this  sen- 
tence all  three  defendants  appealed  to  the 
"  Curia  Regis  "  at  Pressburg,  and  to  quote  the 
exact  words  of  a  Bohemian  newspaper,"  A  most 
unheard-of  thing  happened  in  Slovakland — the 
Appellate  Court  reversed  the  Lower  Court 
and  set  the  defendants  free.  Of  course,  the 
Markovic  brothers  and  Rev.  Culik  were  inno- 
cent, but  nobody  expected  that  a  Slovak  in 
Hungary,  once  sentenced  to  prison  for  sedition, 
could  be  released  from  the  clutches  of  the  law." 
Dr.  Julius  Markovic,  after  his  release,  pub- 
lished the  whole  case  in  book  form  (252  pages) 
under  the  title :  Nitriansky  politic  ky   trestny 

process. 
14 


^v 


e   m  \    a 


**---. 


1 


/ 


/ 


AUSTRO- 
HUNGARIAN 
MONARCHY 


swowing    SLOVAKLAND 

or 

SLOVEMSKO. 


r 


INDEX 


Albrecht,  King,  66. 
Alexander   I.,   of  Russia,  30, 

31,  32. 
Arady,  Adalbert,   118. 

Bach,  Minister,  absolutism 
of,  87;   resigns,  88. 

Bajza,  Joseph  I.,  precursor 
of  Bernolak,  106,   116,  118. 

Bachat,   Daniel,    129. 

Bartholomaeides,   119. 

Batthyanyi,  Premier,  opposes 
Slavic  Congress,  40. 

Bel,  Matthew,  112,  117. 

Bella,  Andrew,   129. 

Bernolak,  Anton,  codified 
Slovak  language,  105,  106, 
107,  108,  109,  112,  115,  116, 
117;  founds  societies  to 
propagate  it,  118,  121,  125, 
136. 

Bencur,  Dr.   Matthew,   143. 

Bielek,  Anton,   144. 

Bludek,  leads  Slovak  in- 
surgents, 84,  85,  86. 

Boleslav,  Empire  of,  col- 
lapsed, 13. 

Bohemians,  "  Apostles  of  pan- 
slavism,"  24 ;  establish  set- 
tlements in  Slovakland,67; 
deplore  literary  secession 
of  Slovaks,  122. 

Borik,  Jaroslav,  80,  84. 
Botto,  John,   137,   140,   141. 

Bfetislav,  13. 

Caban,  O.  126. 
Cernansky.  S.,  119,  125. 
Cerven.  Thomas,   92. 


Chrastek,   Michael,  92. 

Charles,  King  Robert  of  An- 
jou,  62,  63. 

Chalupka,  Samuel  and  John, 
family  of  writers,  129,  137, 
140,  142. 

Cobrda,  Rev.  Paul,  204. 

Cochius,  C,  126. 

Csak,  (Csaky)  Matthew, 
noted  Slovak  rebel,  62 ; 
wars  on  King,  63;  ambi- 
tions of,  64;  defeated  at 
Rozhanovce,    64,    65,     103, 

134- 
Croatians,       resent      Magyar 

meddling,  72;  make  war  on 

Magyars,  79. 
Culik,  L.,  208,  209. 
Cyril,     Slavonic    Apostle,    3, 

10,  11,  12,  14,  49,  57,  171. 
Czambel,    Dr.    Samo,    author 

of    "  Slovaci    a    ich    rec," 

112,    127. 

Dattel,   Anton,    118. 

Daxner,  Stephen  M.,  drafted 

"Memorandum,"      89,      91. 

143,  163. 
Deak,  94. 
Dobrovsky,  Joseph,  father  of 

Slavic  philology,  23,  24,  25, 

31,  no,  in. 
Dobsinsky,     Paul,     folklorist, 

129,  142. 
Dohnany,  Nicholas,  142. 
Dolezal,  125. 

Elizabeth      Queen,      troubles 
during  reign  of,  66,  67. 


211 


2  12 


INDEX 


Eszterhazy,  40. 

Falbi,    Simon,    118. 

Fandli,    George,    106,    118. 

Fejerpataky,   Caspar,   123. 

Feriencik,  Nicholas  Stephen, 
142. 

Florinskij,  Russian  philolo- 
gist, upholds  independence 
of  Slovak,   in. 

Frischeisen,  Colonel,  86. 

Francisci,  John,  91,  142. 

Frankfort  Parliament,  aims 
at  entity  of  Austria,  35 ; 
precipitates  Slavic  Con- 
gress, 37,  38,  76,  82. 

Gaj,  Ljudevit,  journalist, 
father  of  "  Illyrism "  or 
unity   of  South    Slavs,  29; 

^  supports  Jelacic,  73,  81,  82. 

Germans,  builders  of  cities  in 
Hungary,  60;  at  height  of 
influence  under  Joseph  II., 
61 ;  their  settlements  in  Slo- 
vakland  absorbed,  62. 

Gerometta,  E.,  126. 

Godra,  M.,  119,  129. 

Graichman,  Jacob,  142. 

Griinwald,  Adalbert,  95,  theo- 
ry of  extermination  of  Slo- 
vaks, 96,  97. 

Hamaliar,  M.,  119. 

Hattala,    Prof.   Martin,   gives 

to     Slovak     scientific     and 

Slavonic    finish,    108,    126, 

127. 
Mavlicek,  Charles,  Bohemian 

journalist,       33;       dissents 

from   Kollar's  views,  34. 
I  [(  gediis,  Roland,  155. 
Hegel,   theories   of,   accepted 

by  Slovaks,    140. 
Herder,  German  philosopher, 

panslavist    seed    traced    to, 

-'.?.  23,  26. 
Holly,  John,  Bernolakist  poet 


of  prominence,  107,  128, 
136. 

Holly,  George,   118. 

Hodza,  Michael  M.,  51,  65, 
80,  84,  85,  86,  108;  writes 
"  Epigenes  Slovenicus," 

125,  126,  127,  128,  134;  per- 
secuted and  exiled,  138,  139. 

Holuby,  80,  120,  143,  154. 

Hroboh,  Samo,  mystic  and 
Hegelian,   126,   139. 

Hruskovic,   125. 

Hrusovsky,  Igor,  208. 

Hunyadi,  regency  of  disputed 
by  Csak,  67. 

Hurban,  Joseph  M.,  soul  of 
revolutionary  movement, 
51,  65,  80,  84,  85,  87,  127, 
128,  134,  137,  138,  139; 
Slovak  O'Connell,  205. 

Hussites,  54,  invade  Slovak- 
land,  66;  introduce  Kralic 
Bible,  68,  104;  nationalize 
Slovaks,   115. 

Illyrism,  abhorred  by  Mag- 
yars, 73 ;  meaning  of,  82. 

Jagic,  in. 

Janecek,  military  leader  of 
insurgents,  84,  85,  86. 

Jelacic,  Ban  Joseph,  73, 
defiant  toward  Magyars, 
74;  abolishes  serfdom  at 
home,  77,  78;  implored  to 
aid  Servians,  79;  wages  war 
on  Magyars,  80 ;  adverse 
criticism  of  the  Ban,  81,  82. 

Jiskra,  John,  of  Brandys, 
Hussite  Captain,  67,  114, 
167. 

Joseph  II.,  Emperor,  95; 
tries  to  make  Austria  Hun- 
gary German,  62,  too,  113, 
177;   his  ordinances.    178. 

Jungmann,  Nestor  of  Bohe- 
mian letters;  views  on  pan- 
slavism,   25,  26. 

Justb,  00. 


INDEX 


213 


Kalal,  Charles,  197. 
Kalineak,  John,    140,    141. 
Kellner,  Peter,  142. 
Kmet,  Andrew,  56,  143. 
Kopitar,  23,  25,  31. 
Kocel,   Prince,   Slovak   ruler, 

57- 

Korvin,  103,  141. 

Kossuth,  opposes  non-Magyar 
nationalities,  51,  69,  71,77; 
"Kossuth  Gibbets,"  81,  84, 
86,  152;  his  son  Francis 
Kossuth  interviewed,  183, 
184,    185,    186. 

Kollar,  John,  author  of  "  Sla- 
vy  Dcera,"  4;  High  priest 
of  panslavism,  18;  his 
literary  reciprocity  and 
"Slavonic  patriotism,"  19; 
appeals  to  Slavs  to  unite, 
20,  21,  23,  26,  27,  29,  30,  31, 
33,  40,  41,  51,  82,  113,  122, 
124,  127,  128,  129,  131,  132, 

133,  134,  139,   141,  142. 

Krai,  Janko,  140,  141. 

Krizko,  Paul,  143,  172,  175. 

Krcmery,  August,  129. 

Krman,   Daniel,    112. 

Kukuljevic,  Ivan,  first  sug- 
gested Slavic  Congress,  39. 

Kuzmany,  Charles,  91,  92, 
129,  142. 

Ladislav,      Posthumous,      66, 

Leibnitz,     his     utterance     to 

Peter  of  Russia,  2^. 
Leska,  Stephen,   112. 
Lewartowski,  86. 
Lewis,  King,  56. 
Lichard,  Milan,  151. 
Lovich,  A.,   120. 

Macsaj,  Alexander,  105 ;  pre- 
cursor of  Bernolak,    116. 

Maria  Theresa,  106. 

Markovic,  Dr.  Julius,  191, 
192,  208,  209. 

Marothy,  Daniel,   129. 


Matuska,  John,  author  of 
"  Nad    Tatrou    sa    bliska," 

135,   137,   142. 

Methodius,  Apostle  of  Slav- 
onians, 10,  11,  14,  57,  171. 

Mecislav,  of  Poland,  58. 

Metternich,  downfall  of,  69. 

Milkin,  Tichomir,  143. 

Modrafi,  80. 

Moyses,  Bishop  Stephen, 
leads  deputation  to  Emper- 
or-King, 90,  92. 

Mudron,  Paul,  51,  92. 

Niederle,  Lubor,   1,  55. 
Nejedly,  Joseph,  118. 

Orszagh,  John,  92,  143. 

Palacky,  Francis,  his  letter 
to  the  Frankfort  Parlia- 
ment,   23,    36,    41,    45,    122, 

174- 
Palarik,  John,   142. 
Palkovic,    George,    112,    117, 

119,    137- 
Pauliny,  98,  99,  129,  137,  142. 
Pauliny-Toth,   2iga,    149. 
Pietor,    Ambrose,   201. 
Podjavorinsky,  Ludmila,  143. 
Podhradsky,  Joseph,  129. 
Pongrac,  67,   103. 
Pfemysl,  7. 
Pribina,  Prince,  57. 

Radlinsky,  Andrew,  91. 
Rajacic,  Metropolitan,  75,  79. 
Revay,  90. 
Rieger,  Francis  L.,  45  ;  views 

on  panslavism,  46. 
Rotarides,  80. 
Rostislav.  Prince,  57. 
Rudnay,    Primate   Alexander, 

107;    munificent   patron    of 

letters,  117. 
Rybay,  George,  112,  120. 

Safafik,  Paul  Joseph,  author 
of      "  Slavic      Antiquities," 


214 


INDEX 


etc.,  20,  21,  23,  26,  30,  31, 
51,  no,  113,  122,  127,  132, 
133,  140,  142,  145,  146,  148, 
174. 

Saffarovic,  Anton,  118. 

Samo,  founder  of  Slavic  em- 
pire, 7,   13. 

Sasinek,   Francis,  98,   143. 

Scasny,  J.,   126. 

Seberiny,   J.,    120. 

Semian,  125. 

Servians,  revolt  and  plan 
"Vojvodina,"  76;  cruelly 
treated  by  Magyars,  79. 

Sigismund,    King,  66. 

Sinapius  Daniel,  112. 

Skultety,   49,    143. 

Sladkovic,  Andrew,  noted 
poet,   128,    140,   141. 

Sladkovic,   Martin,   143. 

Slavic  Congress  at  Prague, 
first  family  gathering  of 
Slavs  in  centuries,  39,  41 ; 
ends  abruptly  by  outbreak 
of  revolution,  43,  TJ. 

Soltesz,  Ellen  Marothy,  143. 

Somolicky,  J.,   143. 

Stephen,  King,  fosters  civili- 
zation in  Hungary,  58,  59, 
104;  Slavic  influence  at  his 
court,   173.   *77- 

Stodola,  Dr.   Emil.   156. 

Stur,  Ludevit,  51 ;  revolution- 
ary leader  in  1848,  65,  80, 
83"  84,  108,  109,  ill,  119; 
reforms  Slovak  language, 
[20,    121,    122,    125,    126,    127, 

128,  133,  134.  135,  136,  137. 
138,  139- 


Svatopluk,  ruler  of  Great 
Moravia,  13,  14,  15,  47,  57, 
65,  66,  97,  171. 

Suplikac,  Colonel  Stephen, 
Servian   "  Voj  voda,"    76. 

Sulek,  80. 

Szentivanyi,  90. 


Tablic,    Bohuslav,    112,    119, 

120. 
Tisza,   "  There  is  no    Slovak 

nation,"   98,   187. 
Tomasik,    Samuel,   author  of 

the    hymn    "  Hej    Slovaci," 

129,  137,  140,  141. 
Tranovsky,  125. 
Trefort,  Minister,  98,  99. 


Ugron,  Gabriel,  his  utterance 
on  Magyars,  50. 


Vaclav  II,  King  of  Bohemia, 

62,  63. 
Vajansky,    Svetozar    Hurban, 

author,  patriot  and  leader, 

142,  206. 
Vambery,  Arminius.  145. 
Vansa,  Theresa,  143. 
Vladislav  II.,  66,  67,  103. 
Vlcek,  Jaroslav,  102. 


Zach,  84,  85. 
Zaborsky,  Jonas,    123. 
Zapolya,  John,  65. 
Ziak,  I  sudor,  206,  207. 
Zoch,  G,  129. 


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